TAJIKISTAN STILL PLAGUED BY DRUGS AND REFUGEES

Dushanbe (Transcaspian project). Afghani drug dealers have not stopped
their armed attempts to violate the Tajik-Afghan border to transport drugs
into Tajikistan.

The last few days were no exception. According to information from the
Russian border guards in their Tajikistan press center, the Pyandzh border
squad apprehended two armed intruders trying to leave Afghanistan for
Tajikistan. During the detention attempt, the intruders opened fire on the
frontier guards with rifles. The intruders managed to escape: under cover
of darkness and the tangle of undergrowth. Packages with Afghani and
Pakistani drugs were found on the site of the armed conflict: about three
kilograms of heroin, and almost 2 kg of marijuana.

The press center pointed out that from the beginning of this year, the
Russian border guards have confiscated about 3 tons of drugs, more than a
third of it was heroin.

Tajik law enforcement bodies fight against drug dealers too. According to
the internal affairs minister of this Central Asian country, they have
seized over 1,5 tons of drugs.

Meanwhile, the situation in the Afghani refugees' camps is still difficult.
They have found a temporary shelter in island regions of the river Pyandzh,
which forms the Afghan-Tajik border. Based on the Russian border guards'
approximation there are up to 5 thousand internal migrants. The Afghani
embassy in Dushanbe's estimate is 10 thousand. Now, because of the approach
of the severest part of winter, the refugees have a shortage of food and,
especially, of warm clothes, housing, and medical aid.

The British medical organization "Melvil" has delivered medicines and
several hundred packages of warm blankets to the island regions. The
representatives of the UN High Commissioner for refugees and the World food
program are permanently present in the camps. However, as independent
observers and Russian journalists, who have visited some Afghani camps
consider, their help is minimal and is reduced only to the study of the
situation for the time being. There are also no grounds to the rumors that
the refugees will be allowed into Tajikistan.

The Tajik government has not made a decision yet on this difficult topic
yet. As one of a high-ranking member of the Tajik administration told
journalists, the matter does not result from the socioeconomic difficulties
caused by the civil war. The matter is about "other negative aspects."