UN appeals for Kyrgyzstan aid amid fears of fresh violence

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Children of Shishu Palli Plus, a UK-funded NGO at Sreepur in Gazipur, presented a large-sized painting work to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her official residence Gonobhaban in the city Thursday. — PID Photo

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, June 19 (AFP): The United Nations launched an urgent humanitarian appeal to assist more than one million people affected by ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan as fears grew Saturday of fresh violence in the volatile south.
A day after Kyrgyzstan's acting leader Roza Otunbayeva admitted that the death toll from the clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks was probably 2,000 -- 10 times the official estimate of 192 -- residents of the ravaged southern city of Osh said fears were high of new unrest.
As a senior US envoy met with officials from Kyrgyzstan's embattled interim government, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threw her support behind the Kyrgyz authorities' attempts to restore order and bring in aid.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the UN was launching a 71-million-dollar humanitarian appeal for Kyrgyzstan and that a separate appeal for neighbouring Uzbekistan, where tens of thousands have fled from the violence, would be instigated next week.
Ban cited "shortages of food, water and electricity in the affected areas, due to looting, lack of supply, and restrictions on movement" and said hospitals were running low on medical supplies.
John Holmes, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said he was shocked by "the extent of the violence and appalled by the deaths and injuries, widespread arson, sexual violence, looting of state, commercial and private property and destruction of infrastructure" in Kyrgyzstan.
The UN's World Health Organization said it was working on a worst-case estimate that the crisis could affect up to one million people, including 300,000 people displaced in Kyrgyzstan and 100,000 who have fled to Uzbekistan.
In Osh, residents said they were bracing for new violence after Otunbayeva promised that makeshift barricades around Uzbek neighbourhoods would be removed.
Roads leading to most of the city's Uzbek districts remained closed off with cut-down trees, burnt-out cars and storage containers.
"If they come to open the access roads they will shoot at us again. The army is against us, the state is fighting against us," said 63-year-old Pulat Shikhanov.
"We are not expecting anything good from this. This will restart until they've chased out all the Uzbeks," said the head of the local district, Purdubai Barubayev.
The mayor of Osh, Melisbek Myrzakmatov, told journalists that authorities had set a deadline of 6:00 pm local time (1200 GMT) Sunday for the barricades to be removed.
The riots were the worst inter-ethnic clashes to hit the impoverished Central Asian state since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Victims of the unrest have told AFP that the violence was a brutal and orchestrated campaign by armed militias of ethnic Kyrgyz targeting Uzbeks, who make up 14 per cent of Kyrgyzstan's population of 5.3 million.