Pied Piper Needed in Tajik City

The Tajik capital Dushanbe is overrun with rodents, and none of the usual methods of curbing their numbers is working.

Mice and particularly brown rats are everywhere, carrying lice-borne diseases as the heat of summer increases hygiene problems.

Some blame food outlets like cafes for lax standards which provide rodents with plenty to eat.

The standard method – laying down poison block by residential block – does not seem to be working. People say the rats just move out for the duration, as the extermination programme does not cover a wide enough radius at any one time.

One local resident, Saidkhoja Azizov, thinks he has the answer – not just cats, specially-trained cats.
 
The audio programme, in Russian and Tajik, went out on national radio stations in Tajikistan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.