Tajikistan says hundreds of its citizens stranded in Moscow airports as Russia bars them from entering
Hundreds of Tajikistani citizens are currently stuck in Moscow airports, according to the country’s foreign ministry. As of Saturday night, the agency reported, 954 people from Tajikistan were being held “in unsanitary conditions” in Vnukovo Airport’s temporary detention zone, including people studying at Russian educational institutions under the Russian government’s foreign student quotas. Meanwhile, dozens of other Tajikistanis are reportedly stranded in the city’s other airports.
On Sunday, the ministry reported that 322 of the people held at Vnukovo had been released “after many hours of waiting” and that the Russian authorities planned to “put 306 people on a so-called deportation list.” Twenty-seven people have reportedly been deported already. “Such restrictive measures are being applied exclusively to citizens of Tajikistan,” the agency said. That evening, it released a recommendation for its citizens to “temporarily refrain from traveling to Russian territory by all types of transport unless absolutely necessary.”
On Saturday, Tajikistani Foreign Ministry representatives met with Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Semyon Grigoryev. According to the ministry’s report on the meeting, the officials discussed “difficulties” that Tajikistani citizens have faced when crossing the Russian border in recent years. On April 29, the Tajikistani ministry said it had sent an official note expressing its “serious concern over the widespread cases of emphatically negative treatment” of Tajikistani citizens on Russian territory as well as “widespread violations of their rights and freedoms.”
According to Tajikistan’s Radio Europe/Radio Free Liberty affiliate, Radio Ozodi, several Tajikistani citizens said on April 26 that they had been held in Vnukovo for three days and that 500 of their compatriots were still stuck there.
On April 25, the outlet Asia-Plus reported that approximately 180 vehicles with Tajikistani license plates had been stuck at the Russia-Kazakhstan border for three days and were not being permitted to enter Russia.
“Other citizens are being allowed [into Russia] — it’s only Tajiks that aren’t. There are about 180 cars, most of them with Tajikistani plates. Each car has between five and 10–12 passengers, most of them women and children,” one traveler told journalists.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Sunday that the situation at the border is linked to “increased security measures” in response to the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack last month and the “continuation of the terrorism threat.” She claimed the border checks were being conducted “regardless of the citizenship of the individuals crossing the border.”
Central Asians in Russia have faced increased scrutiny from law enforcement since the Crocus City Hall attack, in connection with which four Tajikistani citizens have been charged. In late March, Tajikistan’s Labor Ministry reported an outflux of labor migrants from Russia. Deputy Labor Minister Shakhnoza Nodiri said the situation was “less about complaints of persecution than about our citizens’ fears and panic,” though she added that there had also been a spike in recorded harassment incidents against Tajikistani citizens.