TASHKENT, October 10 (AVN) - Some 1,500 residents of Uzbekistan's Surkhandarya region have been removed from their home villages near the border with Tajikistan to other areas of the country, a spokesman for the Uzbek Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
The removal is effected to ensure security of the people, the spokesman told the Military News Agency.
It is of interest that there are almost no men aged 16 to 65 among the removed. Some sources say the men stayed to secure cattle that is hard to transport, others claim that the area was mostly populated by ethnic Tajiks who have relocated to Tajikistan fearful of persecution by Uzbek army servicemen. It is common knowledge that local soldiers believe that any bearded man in the Babatag mountains is a guerrilla of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
According to information obtained by the Agency, Uzbek sappers mined the main paths, ways and passes on the border in summer this year. Unofficial sources claim that about 40 residents of both countries have stepped on mines and over 10 of them died. Tajikistan has made several official statements protesting the mining and violation of the border by Uzbek aviation. However Uzbekistan insists that the locals should only cross the border in specially assigned places.
The Uzbekistan-Tajikistan border still awaits delimitation. There are a lot of disputable sections, especially in canyons, river valleys, oases and on mountain paths. Many military experts in both Tashkent and Dushanbe believe that mining of the border areas would further affect already strained relations between the two states.