The Peace Deal That Ended Tajikistan's Bloody Civil War

Protesters face government troops on Putovsky Street in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, in February 1990. It marked the moment Islamists emerged on the country's political scene and bloody riots led to the deaths of 28 people. Authorities declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew.

Political tensions grew with a mass rally near the Tajik parliament in July 1991. Protesters demanded the resignation of the government and the nationalization of property held by Tajikistan's Communist Party.

As the Soviet Union crumbled, Tajik nationalism surged and communist symbols fell. An old Tajik man looks at a toppled statue of Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in downtown Dushanbe on September 28, 1991. 

Government supporters punished those who challenged the authorities as violent incidents grew in Dushanbe during May 1992.
 

Tanks from a Russian base were deployed on the streets of the city of Bokhtar (then Qurghonteppe) in the summer of 1992.

In 1992, during the 16th Session of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan in Khujand, Emomali Rahmon (left) was elected chairman of parliament and head of state.
 

Fighters of the presidential guard carrying their wounded to a shelter in Kurgan-Tyube near Dushanbe, on August 11, 1997. More than 150,000 people were killed in the five-year conflict.

Tajik refugees in Afghanistan. During the five-year civil war, one-tenth of the Tajik population fled their country.

Camp Sakhi, in northern Afghanistan, built for the Tajik refugees in 1993
 

Tajik refugees return home in October 1997 after leaving Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan.

Moscow sent Russian troops to Tajikistan to help the government. Pictured is General Pavel Lipsky, the deputy commander of Russian peacekeeping forces, on August 16, 1997.

Government soldiers on the outskirts of Kabodien in August 1997

The leadership of the Tajik government and opposition in Afghanistan meeting in Kabul under the auspices of the UN and Afghan President Burhonuddin Rabbani

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon (left) and the leader of the Islamic opposition, Said Abdullo Nuri (right), during a ceremony to mark the signing of a peace agreement in the presence of Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on December 23, 1996. In the center is the UN secretary-general's special envoy, Herd Merrem.

Tajik President Rahmon (right) and opposition leader Nuri (left) signed a general peace agreement in Moscow on June 27, 1997. The signing ceremony was attended by Russian President Boris Yeltsin (second right).

The implementation of the peace agreements allowed thousands of Tajik refugees to return to their native land in October 1997.

Tajik refugees, who had fled to the city of Mazar-e Sharif in neighboring Afghanistan, returned to Tajikistan in October 1997.