Tajikistan

A very happy New Year in Rasht
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Published on 5 April 2011

The families seen here received a two-month supply of the basic WFP ration, very much welcome after the hard winter.

 

 

The people in five villages of the remote Rasht Valley in eastern Tajikistan had good reason to celebrate the annual "Navruz" or Central Asian New Year in March, as WFP delivered much appreciated food at the tail end of a hard winter. Five  "jamoats" -- villages -- in Rasht were cut off by fighting late last year between government and insurgent forces, and the people were caught between, unable to move freely, tend their farms or go to the market to purchase food. Once the snow and ice melted and the roads were again passable, WFP conducted a special distribution for some 4,600 grateful people in the villages, for whom the fortified wheat flour, enriched vegetable oil, salt and dried peas will keep them going until the first spring crops appear.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The people in five villages of the remote Rasht Valley in eastern Tajikistan had good reason to celebrate the annual "Navruz" or Central Asian New Year in March, as WFP delivered much appreciated food at the tail end of a hard winter. Five  "jamoats" -- villages -- in Rasht were cut off by fighting late last year between government and insurgent forces, and the people were caught between, unable to move freely, tend their farms or go to the market to purchase food. Once the snow and ice melted and the roads were again passable, WFP conducted a special distribution for some 4,600 grateful people in the villages, for whom the fortified wheat flour, enriched vegetable oil, salt and dried peas will keep them going until the first spring crops appear.

 

 

 

WFP Offices
About the author

Heather Hill

Deputy Country Director of Tajikistan

Heather Hill joined WFP as a Public Information Officer in 1998. A former journalist, she has been a WFP spokesperson in major emergencies including  the crises in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) and the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004). She was based in Rome and Bangkok before transferring to Central Asia in July 2009.