After a quiet night, the Kyrgyz-Tajik ceasefire holds for the most part

Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan said that there were no major incidents overnight on Saturday. This meant that ...

Image: Reuters

Berita 24 English - Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan said that there were no major incidents overnight on Saturday. This meant that the ceasefire that was agreed upon after Friday's intense fighting was still in place. However, Kyrgyz border guards said that a village was briefly shelled.

This week, two former Soviet republics fought over a border dispute. Each side said the other had attacked nearby towns with tanks, mortars, rocket artillery, and attack drones.

Most border problems in Central Asia go back to the Soviet era, when Moscow tried to split the area up between different groups whose settlements were often in the middle of those of other ethnicities.

Kyrgyzstan said on Friday that 24 people had been killed and dozens more were hurt. On Saturday morning, after a quiet night, mortars hit a border village for five minutes.

Tajikistan hasn't said how many people died, but sources in the security sector say at least seven people died on Friday. In a statement released on Friday, Tajik border guards said that Kyrgyz helicopters and drones had hit several Tajik villages.

Sources in Tajik security said that the heads of state security on both sides kept talking about ending the conflict on Saturday.