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Tajik border guards secure evacuation corridor for foreigners

The Tajik-Afghan border is guarded in an emergency mode

DUSHANBE, July 26 (Itar-Tass) — The situation with a group of foreigners who could not cross the border from Afghanistan into Tajikistan near the village of Ishkashim, located on both sides of the border Panj River has been satisfactorily resolved.

“Our border guards have provided a corridor for nearly 60 nationals of different countries, including two Russians, for evacuation through the Ishkashim checkpoint, and then for their further transit through the territory of the Eastern Pamirs to the territory of Kyrgyzstan,” a source in a security agency of the republic told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

However, he said, the Tajik-Afghan border is guarded in an emergency mode “in connection with certain events in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of the republic.”

On Wednesday, the Fergana news agency reported about a large group of tourists, including from Russia, as well as two journalists from Kyrgyzstan who could not cross the border from Afghanistan into Tajikistan in the area of the Ishkashim village.

According to the agency, there were about 60 tourists from different countries - Germany, Poland, France, Russia, Kyrgyzstan in the village near the border. The group included climbers and cyclists who could not go anywhere – either to Kabul or towards Tajikistan, because the border crossing was closed in connection with a military operation in Khorog.

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