14 July 2022

When roadbuilders overhauling and straightening a highway in southern Kyrgyzstan arrived in the densely populated town of Nookat, they bumped into a problem: homes. Officials overseeing work on the Osh-Batken-Isfana road solved the hindrance by issuing demolition orders. Buildings that had stood there since the middle of last century are now gone or in ruins. Owners say they were given barely any chance to resist or appeal...

Meanwhile, Nookat Mayor Ulan Turganbayev, who was appointed to his job in February, insists that residents are being untruthful when they say that they were not informed in good time that their neighborhood lay along the Osh-Nookat-Isfana highway expansion zone. What is more, Turganbayev says, homeowners tried their luck by surreptitiously expanding the limits of their property beyond what actually belong to them...

When Turganbayev spoke to Eurasianet, 57 private homes and 11 commercial locations in Nookat and the town’s suburbs had been either demolished by road workers or disassembled by the owners...