Yearbook 2008
Tajikistan. According to
Countryaah reports, the coldest winter in the memory of the
people caused a serious supply crisis in the poor and
heavily indebted Tajikistan. In February, tens of thousands
of people were found to be malnourished after food prices
tripled in a few months. In the midst of the severe cold,
many residents lacked electricity, heat, water and enough
food. In the mountains, villages were isolated because of
the snow and people froze to death. UN Children's Fund
UNICEF assisted icy hospitals with blankets and small gas
heaters. The government met with representatives of
international lenders to discuss crisis loans, and the UN
appealed to the outside world for assistance to Tajikistan
for the equivalent of close to SEK 200 million.
Neighboring Uzbekistan shut down electricity supplies
when Tajikistan could not pay its bills. The electricity
shortage was partly remedied by Turkmenistan doubling its
electricity exports to Tajikistan, whose own power plants
were running at low speed due to frozen rivers.
In April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ordered
Tajikistan to repay just over $ 47 million in loans granted
on the basis of false information. The Central Bank of
Tajikistan has acknowledged that it has provided air figures
for the foreign exchange reserve in order to get higher
loans and thus more support for agriculture affected by the
severe winter.
In the wake of the cold winter, tensions and the struggle
for water in the border region between Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan increased in the Fergana Valley. About 150
Tajikistanis attacked those responsible for a dam built by
Kyrgyz authorities. A threatening carnage was averted by
opening the dam to fill irrigation channels on the
Tajikistani side.
Opposition activist Dodojon Atovullo fled in the fall
from his exile in Russia to France, fearing that Russia
would agree to T's demand for extradition.
In the fall, UN experts warned that a third of
Tajikistan's 6.7 million residents could be suffering from
food shortages this coming winter, and calls for more help
from the outside world. The government presented a program
of measures to prevent the recurrence of last winter's
crisis. The supply situation had worsened during the summer
due to severe drought and grasshopper swarms, and this
year's cereal harvest was 30-40 percent lower than in 2007.
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