Internews trained local journalists in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to produce the “Open Asia’’ news magazine which reports on pressing political and social problems of their respective countries.

For more than a century, the village of Manak was home to both Turkmen and Uzbeks. In 2000, Turkmen border guards installed frontier posts and barbed wire, slicing the village in two. Manak residents were suddenly segregated as travel between the Uzbek side and the Turkmen side is prohibited. Families and friends were torn apart. Farmers like Maksud Yakubov lost their land. Yabukov comes every day to look through the barbed wire at the kitchen garden he had planted before the border was fortified.

People whose families used to live together for ever are separated today by the barbed wire, the border between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Village residents were once able to sell their crops in Turkmenistan, but now this is no longer possible. To cross the barbed wire, one must purchase an expensive visa. While Manakians struggle to make sense of this injustice, authorities remain silent.

Communication across the border thus proves very difficult. After the separation, it became apparent that one of the oldest Turkmen schools — built nearly 80 years ago — was on Uzbek territory. How are teachers to maintain the integrity of a Turkmen curriculum without communicating with other teachers in Turkmenistan? How will they preserve Turkmen language and culture when they are forbidden from accessing Turkmen literature, music, and press?”

Read more on "Open Asia’’ project

The project was funded by the European Commission and USAID.