Conflicts have consequences, even after the combatants have settled down to negotiate.
On January 5, in the village of Arka-2 in Leilek district – the far west end of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Region – a 32-year-old woman and her 11-year-old daughter were reportedly injured by an exploding shell that likely had been left over from the September 2022 conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Leilek district is surrounded by Tajikistan’s Sughd Region to the south, west, and north.
Kyrgyzstan’s Border Service, under the country’s State Committee for National Security (SCNS), stated that the house where the shell exploded had been almost completely destroyed by fire during the 2022 conflict.
RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, Azattyk, reported that the woman and her daughter were cleaning up the yard. They picked up a metal object and threw it onto the concrete near the house. It exploded, injuring both with shrapnel.
Authorities in Batken reported that the head of the Leilek district police had met with the head of Tajikistan’s Gafurov district – the part of Sughd Region that borders the area, to discuss the situation and “prevent panic among the population.” They urged locals to be careful, not to touch suspicious objects, and to report any that they find to the authorities.
Since independence in 1991, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have wrestled over where exactly much of their mutual border lies. This contention has occasionally flared into violence, most prominently in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, more than 50 civilians were killed in a skirmish that escalated into a military clash, starting with a conflict over a water intake station near Kok-Tash, Kyrgyzstan but expanding to shootouts in the Batken and Leilek districts of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region. The following year, more than 140 people were killed – both civilians and military personnel – in clashes that occurred along a much larger stretch of the border.
In the years since, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have made progress on an agreement over the border. In early December 2024, the two sides announced – after months of alternating negotiation meetings – that they had come to an agreement. In the following week, they announced that they had completed a draft description of the border.
In mid-December, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov claimed that under the agreement, “The disputed territories on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border were divided equally – 50/50.” It was also reported in mid-December that the documents relating to the delimitation and demarcation of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border would be sent to the Jogorku Kenesh, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, in January 2025.
Kamchybek Tashiev, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s SCNS, said that “the issue regarding the border will be discussed openly.” Tashiev, whose remit includes the Border Service, has featured heavily in negotiations with Tajikistan about the border.
The explosion in Arka-2 is a sad reminder that conflicts can have lingering consequences, even after the two sides have made peace. In the course of the explanatory work that will be necessary among the local populations that live in the border regions in light of the final agreements, Kyrgyz and Tajik authorities will also need to raise awareness about the risks of unexploded ordnance and work to help people safely rebuild.
Unfortunately, regional governments have experience with this. In 2000, Uzbekistan began mining its undemarcated border with Tajikistan. After fits and starts over the ensuing years, in 2018 Uzbekistan again commenced demining – not coincidentally, this came alongside progress in border negotiations between the two sides. In 2020, the Uzbek side announced that demining work had been completed.