Russia to ban Tajik migration over HIV, TB threat
Russia may soon close its borders to immigrants from the Central Asian state of Tajikistan, according to Russia’s chief medical officer.
The move is due to the high number of HIV and TB-positive people among them. Last year alone, 188 Tajik citizens were deported from Russia – including 40 who were HIV-positive, and 103 who had tuberculosis. 20 percent of immigrants deported from Russia are Tajik.
“The most natural decision is to ban Tajik labor immigration – until there is a tolerable health situation in Tajikistan,” said Russia’s chief medical officer, Gennady Onishchenko. “Now their healthcare bears zero result.”
This is not the first time that health issues have arisen between the two countries. Back in May 2010, Russia introduced a temporary ban on Tajik citizens under six entering the country, after two Tajik children turned out to be ill with polio. There had been no cases of polio in Russia for more than 14 years.
President Dmitry Medvedev said that the deportation of illegal Tajik immigrants from Russia is not a one-off campaign and stressed that it will in future be carried out regularly.
The initiative comes shortly after Russia’s Migration Service promised to expel 300 illegal Tajik immigrants in retaliation for Tajikistan’s jailing of Russian pilot Vladimir Sadovnichy.
Sadovnichy and his Estonian colleague Aleksey Rudenko, who operated humanitarian flights to Afghanistan, were found guilty of smuggling, illegal crossing of the border of Tajikistan and violation of flight rules. On November 8, a Tajik court sentenced them each to eight and a half years behind bars.
The move sparked a diplomatic row between Moscow and Dushanbe, with Russia’s Foreign Ministry slamming the sentence as “politically motivated”.
RT
