Officer Charged in 2024 Suicide of Young Kazakh Conscript |
Crossroads Asia | Society | Central Asia
Officer Charged in 2024 Suicide of Young Kazakh Conscript
The charging of the officer comes amid increased scrutiny of the deaths of Kazakh soldiers, often quite young, during peacetime.
Yelzhas Toksanbayev, an officer in the Kumbel Border Service unit in the East Kazakhstan Region, was indicted by Kazakhstan’s Main Military Prosecutor’s Office in relation to the 2024 death-by-suicide of Private Mukhamediyar Tastan in the unit.
A hearing in the Semey Garrison Military Court is scheduled for April 22.
The charge comes amid increased scrutiny of the deaths of Kazakh soldiers, often quite young, during peacetime. In 2023, military officials told the Kazakh Senate that 270 personnel had died in Kazakhstan between 2020 and 2023, with the top causes being illness, traffic accidents, and suicide.
As I wrote earlier this year:
Hazing, paired with the context of Kazakhstan’s compulsory military service system, have drawn considerable critique, but little concrete action on the part of authorities. Families of soldiers who have died in unusual or unclear circumstances report inadequate attention by the authorities to their cases, and outright dismissal of their concerns about abuse within the military, occasionally with fatal consequences.
Hazing, paired with the context of Kazakhstan’s compulsory military service system, have drawn considerable critique, but little concrete action on the part of authorities. Families of soldiers who have died in unusual or unclear circumstances report inadequate attention by the authorities to their cases, and outright dismissal of their concerns about abuse within the military, occasionally with fatal consequences.
In late January, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defense acknowledged a recent slate of deaths and announced “a set of emergency measures… to prevent similar tragedies in the future.” Those measures included increasing the “personal responsibility of commanders and non-commissioned officers.”
Whether the movement in Mukhamediyar Tastan’s case is related to those measures or not, it illustrates the need to escalate responsibility when it comes to hazing.
In September 2024, 18-year-old Private Mukhamediyar Tastan died by suicide. He shot himself in a border tower in East Kazakhstan region following months of verbal and physical abuse by his sergeant and possibly others further up in the hierarchy of the Kumbel border detachment in which he served.
In July 2025, Junior Sergeant Azamat Takybayev was sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of abuse of office (Article 451) for exerting emotional and physical pressure on Tastan.
At the time, as RFE/RL’s Kazakh........