“We carried an ill woman from our bridge for 17 kilometres on a stretcher… because the roads were blocked”. What are the difficulties faced by the residents of highland Yagnob?”
The author of CABAR.asia, Navruz Karimov, travelled to Yagnob with the environmental organisation “Little Earth” and prepared a documentary film about Yagnob and the problems of its inhabitants.
Roads in Yagnob are closed every winter due to avalanches. Residents are cut off from civilisation for 6 months and are not even able to receive first aid. In recent years, several residents have already died for this reason.
The pressure at an altitude of 2,450 metres does not allow quick cooking, so residents waste 3 times more wood and dung cakes, depleting the valley’s forests. The pressure on Yagnob pastures is caused by the cattle drive from Khatlon province and Zafarabad district. More than three thousand cattle are annually driven to Yagnob.
“We only have 500 cattle, it is the herds from other regions that are damaging our ecology,” says one of the locals.
At the same time, the territory where the Yagnob people live is protected by the state – in 2019, Yagnob was granted the status of National Natural and Ethnographic Park. Now forest cutting on the territory of the park is prohibited, but the residents do not follow this rule. Power from low-powered micro-hydropower plants is enough for residents only for lighting. The richest families use diesel-powered engines for a few hours a day.
The houses in which the families live are undocumented. In case the houses are destroyed, for example, by natural disasters, the Yagnob people will not receive any compensation. But the families are not concerned about this issue, because the houses were built by their grandfathers in safe locations out of reach of avalanches. The houses in which the families live are undocumented. In case the houses are destroyed, for example, by natural disasters, the Yagnob people will not receive any compensation. But the families are not concerned about this issue, because the houses were built by their grandfathers in safe locations out of reach of avalanches.
The region is concerned about other issues. Yagnob is in dire need of energy-saving appliances, road-clearing equipment, primary schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. Some Yagnob women still give birth in their homes to this day.
Niyoz Karimov, director of the National Natural and Ethnographic Park, described a case in which a woman’s blood pressure spiked after giving birth.
“We carried her from our bridge 17 kilometres on a stretcher to the village of Margeb… because the roads were closed,” Niyoz Karimov said.