The oppositionist Turkmenistan Chronicles have recently published an article about human rights violations by Turkmen border guards. It describes the case of a Tazagul Saparova, who was detained for several hours at the Kunyaurgench border checkpoint between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

She presented her passport and the son’s birth certificate to a border guard. […]. She was immediately summoned to the office of the senior officer whereas her son was taken to another room. In a very rude manner she was asked the following questions: Is this your son? Do you intend to leave your child in Uzbekistan? Are you going to stay there as well, because you are travelling together with your son?

In the meantime, another border guard officer was interrogating her son. […]. Needless to say, that both the woman and the boy were frightened by the interrogation, which was conducted in a rude manner. They could not understand why they were detained and what they did wrong.

Several hours later they were allowed to enter Uzbekistan without explaining the reasons for the detention and, needless to say, without any apologies.

When I was reading the article, I recalled a much more serious situation that I witnessed myself on the Turkmen-Kazakh border (Garabogaz-Temirbaba border crossing point) about half a year ago.

There was a woman with two children who had been living on no-man’s land just before the first Turkmen checkpoint for about 3 months. They were living in a tent and survived only on the food and water left by people who were crossing the border.

I managed to establish that the woman was of Tartar ethnic origin and used to live in Turkmenistan (which led me to believe she was a citizen of Turkmenistan). She had left Turkmenistan (I did not know where to and for how long), but then decided to return. She passed through Kazakhstan and crossed the Kazakh border crossing, but for unknown reasons was not admitted on the territory of Turkmenistan. When she wanted to go back to Kazakhstan, she was not allowed to return.

This border crossing is used only by local people (mainly Kazakhs living in Turkmenistan) who are not familiar with appropriate laws and regulations and didn’t know whom to inform about the existing situation, probably no institution in Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan had been notified about the situation of the woman and her two children.

When I came to Almaty, I wrote a letter in which I described the whole situation and granted it to Kazakh human rights defenders. They promised to inform appropriate international institutions and ask the authorities to do something about it. Unfortunately, I don’t know what was the later fate of the woman. I just hope that someone finally helped her.