U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1998 - Tajikistan

  Tajikistan hosted about 3,800 refugees and asylum seekers at the end of 1997. UNHCR assisted 10,200 Tajik refugees to repatriate from northern Afghanistan during the year. Since 1993, 42,000 Tajik refugees have repatriated from Afghanistan with UNHCR assistance. Tajikistan's Ministry of Labor and Social Protection's refugee department recognized 1,900 persons as refugees as of October 1997. Another 1,900 asylum claims remained pending. Most humanitarian and development programs in Tajikistan were temporarily suspended after several UN staff members were taken hostage in February 1997. On June 27, the Tajik government and the United Tajik Opposition signed a peace accord that formally ended five years of civil war. As a result, about 23,000 people who had become internally displaced from the Tavil-Dara area in 1996 were able to return home in mid-July. Also in July, the International Organization for Migration completed its program to return another 1,896 previously displaced persons. Fighting resumed between rival groups in the capital, Dushanbe, and in the southern and western regions of the country in August, resulting in at least 30 executions, as well as abductions, rapes, and widespread looting. Fighting also broke out between government militia and opposition forces east of Dushanbe in September. In November, international organizations again temporarily withdrew some of their personnel from Tajikistan after the kidnapping of two French citizens.