On June 19, 2020,more than 600 citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan departed from Kazakhstan from the Zhybek Zholy checkpoint in transit through Uzbekistan. This was made possible thanks to the IOM of the UN Agency, joining forces with regional representatives and NGO partners (NGO “Sana Sezim”). On several occasions, the staff of NGO “Sana Sezim” had to go to the border to support Tajik citizens, to establish a dialogue between tired and losing hope of returning migrants and IOM staff, as well as to provide humanitarian assistance to them. Our organization’s employees had to hear everything: complaints, reproaches, requests, threats, gratitude, distrust, accusations. Moreover, they witnessed tears of children of different ages tired of the heat, from the waiting conditions of not only male migrants, but also pregnant female migrants. These thin women, pregnant migrant women at different periods, who need peace and good nutrition to give birth to healthy babies, exhausted by the heat and expectation, came up with hope in their eyes and asked if the bus would soon be and the border to cross would open? No one is safe and anyone can be in a similar situation, because none of the migrants planned and did not assume that they would have to wait so long to return to their homeland during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to which the borders between the countries were closed.

To recall that the first group of migrants from Tajikistan left the Zhybek Zholy checkpoint (border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) on June 2, 2020, when about 250 people left Kazakhstan.

We are very glad that even at such a difficult time for everyone, there are organizations and volunteers for whom the fate of people who need support is not indifferent, and who make every effort to improve the situation.