Work has reportedly resumed on a essential freeway mission linking Tajikistan with China, months after Chinese language staff of the China Highway and Bridge Company have been killed within the space in an armed assault.
The Dushanbe-Kulma freeway connects the Tajik capital to China by way of Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), and the Kulma Go border crossing. In 2022 – not lengthy after the central Tajik authorities put down one more spherical of unrest in GBAO – the Tajik Transportation Ministry introduced that China Highway and Bridge Company would undertake a mission to rehabilitate the highway.
In late November 2025, 5 Chinese language employees have been killed in two separate assaults close to the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border. Three Chinese language residents have been killed in an assault that focused a gold-mining firm compound on November 26 in Shamsiddin Shohin district in Khatlon Area. 4 days later, on November 30, two extra Chinese language employees – staff of China Highway and Bridge Company – have been killed in Shodak village in GBAO’s Darvoz district. Each assaults befell near the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border.
After the second assault, Chinese language Ambassador to Tajikistan Guo Zhijun “demanded that Tajikistan take all mandatory measures to make sure the protection of Chinese language enterprises and residents in Tajikistan.”
In a WeChat message, the embassy urged Chinese language enterprise and residents to evacuate from the border areas.
With the Chinese language specialists gone, work floor to a halt on the difficult Qal’ai Khumb-Vanj portion of the bigger Dushanbe-Kulma freeway, which stretches between Darvoz district, the place the November 30 assault occurred, and neighboring Rushan district.
In March 2026, Tajikistan’s parliament permitted a Chinese language-funded mission to assemble 9 border services alongside the nation’s frontier with Afghanistan, with a grant of 569 million somoni – roughly $61 million.
And now work on the freeway is seemingly underway as soon as extra. Citing the transportation ministry, RFE/RL’s Tajik service, Ozodi, reported that Chinese language employees are again on the job after Dushanbe adopted extra safety measures.
In response to the ministry, “after taking the mandatory measures to make sure the protection of Chinese language employees in cooperation with related companies, Chinese language employees have returned to the ability and the remaining work is presently underway.”
Tajik officers, of their feedback to Ozodi, acknowledged extra safety measures with out being particular. However an RFE/RL reporter witnessed Chinese language staff being guarded by Tajik particular forces in late Might.
Chinese language employees, sometimes engaged in Belt and Highway Initiative (BRI) infrastructure initiatives, have been focused within the Afghanistan-Pakistan border space and in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province – however the borders with Central Asia haven’t been the websites of such assaults till just lately. In mid-November 2024, Chinese language employees have been attacked for the primary time in Tajikistan – in the identical district the place the primary of the November 2025 assaults occurred.
Within the wake of 2025 assaults, the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan claimed to have opened an investigation. In addition they claimed to have arrested two people in reference to the assaults, which have been each reported to have originated in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province. No particular teams claimed duty, although Tajik authorities instructed that felony teams and drug smugglers have been responsible; Taliban officers instructed that unnamed teams wishing to break the Afghanistan-Tajikistan relationship have been behind the assaults.
Within the months since, there was no replace on the Taliban’s investigation however in January, RFE/RL cited two separate Tajik border officers in GBAO’s Khatlon Province as saying that the Shamsiddin Shohin district assault, concentrating on the gold mining firm, stemmed from water disputes. Additional particulars on the assault concentrating on the highway employees haven’t been made out there.
