Following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan descended into civil war in 1992 between the government, dominated by figures from the Kulob and Leninabad regions and backed by Russia and Uzbekistan, and an opposition coalition of Islamist, democratic, and regionally based (mainly Garmi and Pamiri) groups. The war, fought largely along regional and clan lines, killed an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands within the country, while roughly 60,000–100,000 fled as refugees into northern Afghanistan. A 1997 peace agreement, brokered with UN and Russian involvement, ended the fighting and incorporated opposition elements into a power-sharing government. Most displaced Tajiks eventually returned home in the years following the peace accord.
A civil war between the secular post-Soviet government of Tajikistan, backed by Russia and Uzbekistan, and a coalition of Islamist, democratic, and regionally based opposition forces caused widespread internal displacement and refugee flight into Afghanistan
The 1989 Soviet census counted 5,092,603 and the population was about 5.5 million in 1992. UNHCR reported roughly 600,000 internally displaced and some 60,000-80,000 who fled to Afghanistan, with several hundred thousand more, mainly Russians and other Europeans, leaving for other post-Soviet states; the war killed an estimated 50,000-100,000 people.
Conciliation Resources' Accord series records between 20,000 and 60,000 people killed in the first year of fighting alone, with about 50,000 lives lost between May and December 1992; totals of up to 100,000 for the whole 1992-97 war circulate widely in the secondary literature and in Tajik government statements, while event-based conflict datasets record substantially fewer. Roughly 600,000 people — a tenth of the population — were internally displaced and at least 80,000 fled abroad, mostly to Afghanistan. No independent post-war count was ever conducted, and the Rahmon government has had little incentive to revisit the figures.
Conciliation Resources' Accord study of the war records that many unarmed civilians were murdered in the rural south, apparently in order to force them to flee their homes.
Tajikistan, Afghanistan