A government blockade of the southern Tajikistan region of Kulyab has brought the area's 800, 000 residents to the brink of starvation, a senior diplomat based in Dushanbe said Tuesday.


"What we have heard says it is definitely getting bad down there", the diplomat said, quoting sources which included refugees and a Kyrgyzstan peace delegation that visited the region last week. "There hasn't been a shipment of wheat, flour or bread for over two months. They're clearly working off reserves".


The region has been blockaded since early September when a locally organized army, calling itself the Kulyab popular liberation guard, attacked the pro-government enclave of Kurgan-Tyube ostensibly to protect Kulyabi citizens there.


Rossiiskiye Vesti reported Tuesday that "a number of deaths from starvation have been reported", but it did not name its source.


The blockade, complicated by airplane fuel shortages, has made travel to the region virtually impossible, making it difficult to verify reports of a severe food shortage and the risk of mass starvation.


The main road from Dushanbe became impassable when a bridge was destroyed in fighting in September. The other road to Kulyab passes through Kurgan-Tyube, across the war -front, effectively trapping potential refugees inside the blockaded zone.


Across the rich Kurgan-Tyube valley, large tracts of cotton and grapes remain unharvested, boding badly for the coming winter in what is already one of the poorest of the former Soviet republics.


"It's hard to get facts", the Dushanbe-based diplomat said. "It's virtually impossible to get there".


A Kulyabi television station monitored in the Kurgan-Tyube enclave of Tajikistan last week was dominated by scenes of a close relationship between the Kulyabi government and Russian troops based there, probably calculated to enrage pro-government fighters. Nothing was mentioned of food shortages.


The slide toward war began last spring as Kulyabi refugees from Kurgan-Tyube began returning with stories of abuse at the hands of the various clans that inhabit Kurgan-Tyube. The stories enraged Kulyabis against the Tajik clans -- predominately Garms and Palmiris -- that inhabited Kurgan-Tyube along with Kulyabis, Uzbeks, Russians and Kazakhs.


When the Tajik president, Rakhmon Nabiyev, was ousted after being forced into hiding on Aug. 31 by a coalition supported by two neighboring Tajik clans, the Garms and Palmiris, the Kulyabis lost their most sympathetic ear in Dushanbe.


Feeling besieged, and already angry over offenses committed against Kulyabis, they marched on Kurgan-Tyube vowing to settle the score and restore Nabiyev to power. If the reports of starvation are true, it could force the Kulyabis to make a desperate push to escape their predicament.


Kulyab is hemmed in on the south and east by the Afghan border and on the west and north by government forces. To reach Dushanbe, the Kulyab army must first fight through Kurgan-Tyube.