Central Asia has endless plains, valleys and steppes, as well as some of the highest mountains in the world. Pakistan, for example, has over 7,000 glaciers; there is no country where there are more. They are ticking time bombs. With ever-increasing temperatures, the glaciers are melting faster than ever.
Ruben Terlou is in the north where floods regularly wipe out entire villages. In the province of Sindh, the food chamber of Pakistan, he sees how devastating the effects of floods are for the millions of people who live there.
Jelle Brandt Corstius is in Kyrgyzstan, where precisely the lack of water is the source of yet another ticking time bomb: the escalating conflict with neighboring Tajikistan. In Soviet times, Moscow determined how much water the Tajiks received from canals in Kyrgyzstan. But now the Kyrgyz determine that for themselves, and the Tajiks think they get too little. With shelling back and forth as a result. Jelle is a village where as many as forty people were killed last year. Violence could flare up again at any moment.
About this series
Central Asia was once the hub of world trade. Now we hear little about it, even though it is teeming with intriguing stories. In this series, Ruben Terlou and Jelle Brandt Corstius go in search of them.
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. These are countries that once formed the Old Silk Road, the world's trade center. Most Westerners today have other associations with Central Asia: lots of oil and gas, long-sitting tyrants, and violent steppe regions inhabited by uncultured types.
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