DUSHANBE: Tajikistan has introduced 10-year prison sentences for the illegal use of electricity, as a decades-long energy crisis caused by water shortages worsens in the poor Central Asian country.

Electricity consumption in Tajikistan is limited for about six months per year, as its outdated energy infrastructure struggles to keep up with rising demand.

The country’s Energy and Water Resources Ministry on Saturday announced measures to introduce “criminal liability for violations of regulations on the use of electricity.”

In a sign of how tightly the country controls the press and flow of information, it was only reported by independent media outlets on Monday.

Under the new rules, anybody found trying to disconnect or bypass an electricity meter will face up to 10 years in prison.

Ex-Soviet Tajikistan is ruled by President Emomali Rakhmon, a former state farm boss who has held power since 1992.

Justice Minister Rustam Shoemurod said earlier in April that those who alter meter readings or bypass them to avoid payments are “seriously damaging the country’s economic interests.”

A shortage of water needed to fuel hydroelectric plants, which generate about 95 percent of electricity output in Tajikistan, has led to years of regular power outages.

ATHENS: Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Monday it had identified the first cases of malnourished children in a migrant camp on the Greek island of Samos, which has been criticized by rights groups for dangerous living conditions.
MSF doctors have diagnosed six children from Syria and Afghanistan aged between six months and six years with acute malnutrition needing immediate help, it said.
While it could not say if their malnutrition was due to living in the camp, conditions there — including insufficient food and medical care — endangered their health, MSF said.
“No child should suffer from malnutrition due to systemic neglect,” said Christina Psarra, director general of MSF Greece, calling for immediate action and adding that about a quarter of the camp’s residents were children.
The Greek migration ministry said the cases were isolated.
“Under no circumstances is there generalized malnutrition due to living conditions,” the ministry said, adding that asylum-seekers were provided with three meals a day.
On the forefront of Europe’s 2015-16 migration crisis, Greece saw a surge in arrivals in 2024, according to UN data. This year, nearly a third of arrivals to southern Europe from the Middle East and Africa were to Greece.
The EU-funded Samos camp, a sprawling, heavily-surveilled facility surrounded by barbed wire, was opened by the government in 2021 to replace the former camp of Vathy — once an overcrowded, rat-infested tent city of 7,000 people.
The six malnourished children arrived this year, MSF said.
Rights group Amnesty International has called conditions at Samos “inhumane and degrading” during periods of overcrowding, with water shortages and a lack of other basic services.
In December, a UN human rights expert accused Greece of failing to identify victims of sex trafficking in the camp.
MSF called on Greece and the EU to ensure adequate pediatric care and nutritional support in Samos and to restore financial support to asylum seekers suspended last June.