Over 3,400 Tajiks have been deported from Russia in 6 months

In the past six months about 3,400 citizens of Tajikistan have been deported from airports in Russia.

On July 24, the director of the Civil Aviation Agency under the Government of Tajikistan, Habibullo Nazarzoda, stated at a press conference that the number of Tajik citizens deported from Russian airports to their homeland since March 2024 amounted to 3,400 people.

According to him, passenger traffic has decreased by 36% compared to the same period last year.

“In the first half of 2024, international airports in Tajikistan served nearly 1.7 million passengers, which is 35,800 people, or 36% less than in the same period last year,” Nazarzoda noted.

Since the spring of this year, Russian authorities have intensified pressure on Tajik migrants. Following the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue, in which citizens of Tajikistan are suspected, thousands of Tajik migrants in Russian cities and regions have undergone mass checks and raids. Tajik labor migrants complain that during these raids, law enforcement officers detain even those whose documents are in order, take them to police stations, and keep them there without food and a place to sleep, treating them poorly. After this, migrants were mass deported, and some were forcibly taken to military enlistment offices for further dispatch to the war in Ukraine.

Currently, only in one detention center for foreigners – the Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Citizens of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Moscow region of Sakharovo – 136 Tajik migrants are awaiting deportation. It is unknown how many more migrants are held in other detention centers for foreigners.