Imagine being a member of a little-known, persecuted minority attempting to flee your homeland, where you are at risk of being locked up or even killed, when few outsiders know or even care who you are.
Such is the reality for members of Tajikistan’s Pamiri community, an ethnic minority who are culturally, religiously and linguistically different from Tajiks, the largest ethnic group in the country.
Pamiris were subjected to what has been described as ethnic cleansing by Tajik forces during the country’s civil war from 1990 to 1997, and have been persecuted by the authorities ever since.
