In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, Tajik top emergency official Rustam Nazarzoda said on February 10 that a multifunctional shelter will be built in Jalolddin-Balkhi district of Khatlon province.  

According to him, this facility will be used for reception of refugees, including those from Afghanistan, and Tajik nationals left homeless by natural disasters as well as conducting exercises on the reception of refugees.  

A total area of the shelter will be 4 hectares and facilities for reception of refugees will be built on an area of 2 hectares, Nazarzoda  said.

He further noted that a warehouse with emergency stockpile for families affected by disasters had bene hilt in Khatlon’s Kushoniyon district.  Another such a warehouse is expected to be commissioned in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) in March this year, Nazarzoda added.  

As it had been reported earlier, UNDP and the Emergencies Committee of Tajikistan on October 14 last year opened a non-food items warehouse with emergency stockpile for cross-border emergency situations in Kushoniyon district, Khatlon province.

The warehouse reportedly includes non-food items, such as tents, bedding, kitchen utensils, stoves, clothes, hygiene items and others to ensure adequate and timely assistance to cross-border emergency situations and cover primary needs of at least 100 families.

The warehouse, worth more than 3 million somonis, is the first of the two repositories built within UNDP’s Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction and Response Capacities Project, funded by the Government of Japan. 

The second storage is under construction in Khorog, the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO).  

The design and location of the warehouses to be managed by the Emergencies Committee was preliminarily planned in 2018 to provide easier access for emergency relief in remote and hard to reach areas near the border.