Forced Migration in the OIC Member Countries:
Policy Framework Adopted by Host Countries
53
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as transit points to reach Russia, where they may attempt to reach
Europe or join the large Afghan community centered in Moscow.210
Ethnic conflict and persecution driving forced migration in North Central Asia
Ethnic oppression and political conflict has often triggered forced migration in the North
Central Asia region, with targeted groups finding refuge with co-ethnics in neighboring states.
One example is the 1991 civil war in Tajikistan fought between opposing regional clans. The
conflict forced almost all non-Tajik ethnic groups to flee the country alongside many Tajiks
themselves—800,000 IDPs and 80,000 refugees were officially reported, though demographic
data shows that the actual number of internationally displaced is most likely much higher.211
While a power-sharing agreement that helped end the conflict in 1997 included a “Protocol on
Refugees” that helped repatriate ethnic Tajiks, other ethnic groups mostly stayed in their
countries of refuge with their co-ethnics, where they were generally accepted and integrated
into society.212
Though the former Soviet republics have been mostly willing to find solutions for members of
the states’ respective majority ethnic groups, they can lack a general institutionalized
approach to protection that leaves asylum seekers at risk of refoulement. After the Uzbek
government violently repressed an anti-government demonstration in 2005, thousands of
Uzbeks sought asylum in Kyrgyzstan. While some were recognized as refugees by UNHCR, the
Uzbekistan has pressured the Kyrgyz authorities to return political dissidents deemed to be
criminals.213 More recently in 2010, conflicts between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in
Kyrgyzstan forced over 100,000 people to seek refuge in Uzbekistan. But even though the
flows were majority Uzbek, the asylum seekers were sent back just a few weeks after the
pogroms.214
Another population of particular concern is the Uighurs, a Turkic, predominantly Muslim
group living in the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang. An increasing number of Han
Chinese have immigrated to Xinjiang, seen by the Uighurs as their ancestral home, fueling
ethnic tensions that escalated into violence in 2009.215 As Uighurs seek safety in the
neighboring former Soviet republics, ethnic tensions have persisted: it was reported in 2010
IRIN News, “Focus on Afghan refugees,” February 16, 2004,
210 In 2011, it was estimated that about 150,000 Afghans resided in Russia, mostly legally. Amie Ferris-Rotman, “Daunted
Afghans find refuge in former foe Russia,” Reuters, updated August 22, 2011,
Alina Cibea et al, Afghanistan: Migration Country Report,(Vienna:
International Centre for Migration Policy Development, 2013), 38; Vera Soboleva, “UNHCR struggles to find solutions for
Afghan asylum seekers in Russia,” UNHCR, April 17, 2007,
211 Alessandro Monsutti and Bayram Balci, “Forced Migration in Broader Central Asia,” in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee
and Forced Migration Studies,ed Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long and Nando Sigona (Oxford, United
Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2014), 606; Aaron Erlich, “Tajikistan: From Refugee Sender to Labor Exporter,”
Migration Information Source, July 1, 2006,
212 This trend could be observed in the 2000 Tajikistan census, in which the proportion of ethnic Tajiks in the population
grew to 79.9 percent, compared to 62.3 percent in 1989.Monsutti and Balci, “Forced Migration in Broader Central Asia,”
607; Erlich, “Tajikistan.”
213 Timur Toktonaliev, “Kyrgyzstan: Refugees From Uzbekistan Fear Tashkent’s Long Arm,” December 11,
2014 Monsutti and Balci, “Forced Migration in Broader Central Asia,” 607
214 Monsutti and Balci, “Forced Migration in Broader Central Asia,” 606-607
215 Anthony Howell and C. Cindy Fan, “Migration and Inequality in Xinjiang: A Survey of Han and Uyghur Migrants in
Urumqi,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 52, no. 1 (2011), 119,