Three years ago, Said Davlatov left his farm in Uzbekistan’s remote Karshi Province, moved to Tashkent, and became a construction worker. The move paid off: he recently bought a small apartment and a used car. But these days, Davlatov and thousands of other Uzbek labor migrants who have flocked to cities are finding themselves suddenly unwelcome.
Two years after Georgia’s August 2008 war with Russia, the end of an international food assistance program could put thousands of families displaced by the conflict at risk for hunger, two international aid organizations say.
Georgia’s May 30 local elections are providing an opportunity to gauge the mood of tens of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons, many of who will be voting for the first time since Tbilisi’s disastrous war with Russia in 2008. The governing United National Movement has made some effort to court IDP votes.
“Mr. President, are you ready to rock?” exclaimed Senegalese hip-hop star Youssou N' Dour as Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili arrived at a May 26 concert that was designed to raise awareness about the plight of Georgia’s 350,000 Internally Displaced Persons.
When the sun finally came out recently, women at a temporary camp in Shirvan, in central Azerbaijan, tried to tidy the tents they now call home, and restore a semblance of normalcy to their lives.
Azim Pasanov’s home on the outer limits of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, has no water and no electricity. Eighteen years after he moved there, his life remains unsettled. Doctors won’t see his bedridden wife, Sanabubu, and he can’t send all his grandchildren to school because he and his relatives still lack proper registration documents.
