Five soldiers were killed on July 10 as they struggled to clean up unexploded ordnance in the aftermath of the explosion of an ammunitions dump in Abadan, Turkmenistan, chrono-tm.org, an independent Turkmen emigre news site reported.
Two officers and three soldiers tried to load an unexploded shell into a truck, and the shell detonated. Eyewitnesses said the explosion was so powerful, the truck turned into a pile of twisted metal.
The Turkmen government officially acknowledges only 15 deaths, but reports of many more have been gathered by human rights activists and citizen journalists.
Deputy Defense Minister Merdan Agayev, removed from his post by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on July 10, and stripped of his military rank and other honors is currently in an investigation isolation cell facing criminal charges.
According to unamed sources who were said to know the defense official, he has been made a scapegoat, because he is from the city of Mary, and is an orphan, which means he has no familial or regional ties to the president, who is from Akhal province.
Seven members of the International Social-Ecological Union, a regional organization based in Moscow, have signed a statement expressing their condolences to the families who have lost members in the explosion in Abadan and have called on the authorities to cease the persecution of persons seeking to document events and disseminate information.
They also called for a thorough investigation of the tragedy and for greater attention to be paid to similar dangerous stockpiles of weapons and toxic materials. They urged the government to train more specialists to respond to such disasters.
Most of all, they called for the restoration of civil society in Turkmenistan, as civic groups are needed both to signal problems and combat them. The appeal was signed by Andrei Zatoka, a Russian environmentalist and former political prisoner who resided in Turkmenistan until his deportation in 2009, and six other ecologists.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.