Turkmenistan, where authorities continue to insist on absence of coronavirus in the country, has again imposed a tough lockdown. Azatlyk, the Turkmen service of Radio Liberty, reports.

Ashgabat residents were the first to learn about the restrictions. On January 15, markets, shopping malls, theaters, concert halls, restaurants, barber shops and other businesses in the capital were closed. Only grocery stores are open.

Similar restrictions were imposed in other regions of the country: Balkan, Lebap and Mary regions.

On January 15, Turkmen.news published a copy of an alleged decision of the emergency commission on combatting the spread of diseases, which lists the restrictions consisting of 23 points. In addition, according to this document, the residents of border regions were ordered to limit the entry and exit to regional centers, other districts and provinces until February 1. The number of regular flights from Ashgabat to the administrative centers of the regions and back was also reduced to one per day from January 15 to February 1.

Independent media report that COVID-19 has been spreading in the country for a long time and that many people have died from it. Azatlyk, citing sources in the Ministry of Health, reported in October last year that since the beginning of the epidemic in 2020, more than 25,000 people have died from coronavirus in Turkmenistan.

The President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov declared earlier at a meeting with the WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge in Ashgabat the complete absence of coronavirus in the country. He claimed that «more than 70 percent of the population» of Turkmenistan has been vaccinated.