The border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has been disputed
since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Periodic, small-scale clashes have erupted there over access to land and water
between local populations and at times with border guards.
During those four days in September 2022,
the countries deployed their forces
who launched indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks
– attacks that could amount to war crimes.
The laws of war require Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
to protect civilians during armed conflict.
Human Rights Watch traveled to both sides of the border
to piece together what happened.
We spoke to witnesses, analyzed satellite imagery,
reviewed photos and videos, and built 3D models.
Jakyp Meldikulov, a 55-year-old retiree from Kyrgyzstan,
fled his village of Dostuk after hearing news of violence at the border.
On the 16th, after getting up at 6 a.m. we prepared and fled by car.
We drove for 1km, then realized we forgot something.
We returned to get it.
We couldn’t reach our home; shooting had started.
We were turned back [by Kyrgyz forces] and drove away.
Heavy fighting between forces of the two countries broke out.
Over the next hours, it spread across multiple locations along the border.
Human Rights Watch
investigated an attack by Kyrgyz forces near the village of Chorbog,
where two Tajik ambulances and a vehicle carrying civilians came under fire.
The attack killed ten civilians, including four children
and two medical workers, and injured six more.
By analyzing the movement of the vehicles,
their final positions, and the damage they sustained,
a 3D model helped us determine that the two ambulances were hit by shots
fired from around the Kyrgyz village of Dostuk,
about 110 meters away.
In a separate incident, the Tajik town of Khistevarz
was hit by shelling between 7:30 and 8 a.m.
59-year-old Savrineso Hojiboeva
was killed and four of her relatives were severely injured
when a shell fell inside the family's courtyard,
in what appears to have been an indiscriminate attack.
My two grandchildren were outside. My son and four to five other men were also outside
when suddenly there was a big explosion,
and I thought that the house had collapsed on me.
There was smoke everywhere. Electrical wires broke.
I began to call my son, and he said: “Mom, stand still. Aunty fell [down].”
I asked: “Which aunt?”
My brain did not understand anything.
I didn't even realize she was dead.
Heavy fighting continued along the border throughout the day.
Tajik forces overwhelmed Kyrgyz forces and took
control of multiple Kyrgyz villages.
People in civilian clothes speaking Tajik
carried out widespread looting under the watch of Tajik forces,
while hundreds of homes and other types of civilian infrastructure,
such as kindergartens, schools and medical facilities, were set on fire
in what may have been an attempt to clear the area of its population.
Sometime before 2:30 p.m.
Myrzakmat Hamidov, a 72-year-old retired man from Kyrgyzstan,
was killed in his garden in Borborduk.
The village was under the control of Tajik forces at the time.
In the morning [my husband] took our grandchild to school.
Children were sent back home [while they were] on their way to school because of the conflict.
He came back. I told him that we needed to flee.
He said: “I am an old man. They have taken everything from me. What else can they take now?”
He came and stayed here [in the garden].
Then I entered the neighbor’s basement and sat there.
After 30 minutes, my daughter called me saying that her dad,
who had been answering her calls, was not answering anymore.
And then I came running.
As I came, my husband was lying there [on the ground]. Somebody had covered him.
Around 5 p.m.
in the central square in Ovchi Kal’acha,
a Tajik town on the border, Kyrgyz forces used a laser guided bomb
with blast fragmentation effects near Tajik forces, minutes after they had arrived.
Dozens of civilians were also in the square at the time.
We use 3D modeling to reconstruct the immediate aftermath of the strike,
which killed at least ten civilians and injured 13 others, mostly men,
who had gathered outside a local mosque after a funeral.
We identified the bomb and mapped out
the positions of the military vehicles and the civilian victims
and found that the attack was disproportionate and apparently indiscriminate.
It was about five o'clock.
At that very moment, they struck from the sky. The crowding and stampede began.
Zoidbek Dadobekov was outside the entrance of the mosque,
about 10 meters from the impact site, when the bomb struck.
The first thing I saw was my bloodied leg. Blood was flowing down the bottom of my leg.
And the consequence of this, for example, for me personally, is that I became disabled.
My life is destroyed. I've been in bed for two months now.
The future of my children, instead of studying, is migrant labor. What else can it be?
The burden of their life is now on their shoulders.
Looting and burning continued
in Kyrgyz villages while Tajik forces had control.
By the end of the day, they withdrew.
When we returned... the walls were still standing, we saw the ashes.
There was nothing left inside the [houses].
There was no shelling; we saw that [the houses] were burned down on purpose.
I don't know why this war is going on. What is the reason?
There have already been several wars. What is the use of this? People just die.