Around 1,000 people are currently residing in a tent camp for Afghan refugees in southern Tajikistan, Mohammad Zahir Aghbar, Afghan Ambassador to Tajikistan, said Friday
DUSHANBE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th July, 2021) Around 1,000 people are currently residing in a tent camp for Afghan refugees in southern Tajikistan, Mohammad Zahir Aghbar, Afghan Ambassador to Tajikistan, said Friday.
Last week, the Taliban terrorist group (banned in Russia) initiated a major offensive in predominantly rural northern parts of Afghanistan after the US and its NATO allies began the troop pullout in line with the February 2020 US-Taliban deal. Two Afghan border crossings with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan fell to the militants over the past week.
The refugee camp in Tajikistan was built in the border area with Afghanistan, Zahir Aghbar noted on his Facebook page. On Thursday, he made a second visit to the settlement housing up to 1,000 citizens who fled from the Taliban taking over a number of districts in the Afghan province of Badakhshan, which borders Tajikistan, since last week.
The diplomat also expressed gratitude to the Tajik government for providing aid to the Afghan people in difficult times.
A source in the Tajik State Committee for National Security told Sputnik that Afghan border guards and military personnel, as well as members of their families, were among the refugees sheltering in the country.
