Mobs burn villages, slaughter Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan
Monday, 14 June 2010
OSH, Kyrgyzstan, June 13 (AP): Kyrgyz mobs burned Uzbek villages and slaughtered their residents Sunday as ethnic rioting engulfed southern Kyrgyzstan. The government ordered troops to shoot rioters dead but even that measure failed to stop the spiraling violence.
More than 100 people have been killed and over 1,000 wounded in the impoverished Central Asian nation since the violence began Thursday night. Doctors say that death toll is low, because wounded Uzbeks are too afraid of being attacked again to seek treatment in hospitals.
Thousands of Uzbeks have fled in panic to the border with Uzbekistan after their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men. Uzbek women and children were gunned down as they tried to escape, witnesses said.
Fires set by rioters have destroyed most of Osh, a city of 250,000, and looters have stolen most of its food. Triumphant crowds of Kyrgyz men took control of most of Osh on Sunday while the few Uzbeks still in the city barricaded themselves in their neighborhoods.
The riots are the worst violence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country. The Uzbeks have backed the interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south had support the toppled president.
Interim President Roza Otunbayeva blamed Bakiyev's family for instigating the unrest in Osh, saying they aimed to derail a constitutional referendum to be held June 27 and new elections scheduled for October. A local southern official said Bakiyev supporters attacked both Kyrgyz and Uzbeks to ignite the rioting.
Otunbayeva asked Russia for military help to quell the violence, but the Kremlin refused, saying it would not meddle in an internal conflict. Russia did send a plane to deliver humanitarian supplies and evacuate some victims.
Kyrgyzstan hosts both US and Russian military air bases, but they are in the north, away from the fighting.
The US Manas air base in the capital, Bishkek, is a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. A Pentagon spokesman in Washington said Saturday that the interim government had not asked for any US military help.
Bakiyev was propelled to power in 2005 on a wave of street protests, but his authority collapsed amid growing corruption allegations, worsening living conditions and political repression.
Gunfire rang out Sunday in another major southern city, Jalal-Abad, where the day before a rampaging mob burned a university, besieged a police station and seized an armored vehicle and weapons from a local military unit. Thousands of Kyrgyz men brandishing sticks, metals bars and hunting rifles gathered at the city's horse racing track, shouting anti-Uzbek slogans while frightened police stayed away.
Meanwhile, AFP from BISHKEK adds: Kyrgyzstan's interim government on Sunday declared a state of emergency across the country's entire southern Jalalabad region, as deadly ethnic clashes spread there from neighbouring Osh.
The state of emergency was extended "in connection with the ongoing clashes taking place in Jalalabad, in the interest of public safety and for the speedy normalization and establishment of public order," it said in a statement.
More than 100 people have been killed and over 1,000 wounded in the impoverished Central Asian nation since the violence began Thursday night. Doctors say that death toll is low, because wounded Uzbeks are too afraid of being attacked again to seek treatment in hospitals.
Thousands of Uzbeks have fled in panic to the border with Uzbekistan after their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men. Uzbek women and children were gunned down as they tried to escape, witnesses said.
Fires set by rioters have destroyed most of Osh, a city of 250,000, and looters have stolen most of its food. Triumphant crowds of Kyrgyz men took control of most of Osh on Sunday while the few Uzbeks still in the city barricaded themselves in their neighborhoods.
The riots are the worst violence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country. The Uzbeks have backed the interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south had support the toppled president.
Interim President Roza Otunbayeva blamed Bakiyev's family for instigating the unrest in Osh, saying they aimed to derail a constitutional referendum to be held June 27 and new elections scheduled for October. A local southern official said Bakiyev supporters attacked both Kyrgyz and Uzbeks to ignite the rioting.
Otunbayeva asked Russia for military help to quell the violence, but the Kremlin refused, saying it would not meddle in an internal conflict. Russia did send a plane to deliver humanitarian supplies and evacuate some victims.
Kyrgyzstan hosts both US and Russian military air bases, but they are in the north, away from the fighting.
The US Manas air base in the capital, Bishkek, is a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. A Pentagon spokesman in Washington said Saturday that the interim government had not asked for any US military help.
Bakiyev was propelled to power in 2005 on a wave of street protests, but his authority collapsed amid growing corruption allegations, worsening living conditions and political repression.
Gunfire rang out Sunday in another major southern city, Jalal-Abad, where the day before a rampaging mob burned a university, besieged a police station and seized an armored vehicle and weapons from a local military unit. Thousands of Kyrgyz men brandishing sticks, metals bars and hunting rifles gathered at the city's horse racing track, shouting anti-Uzbek slogans while frightened police stayed away.
Meanwhile, AFP from BISHKEK adds: Kyrgyzstan's interim government on Sunday declared a state of emergency across the country's entire southern Jalalabad region, as deadly ethnic clashes spread there from neighbouring Osh.
The state of emergency was extended "in connection with the ongoing clashes taking place in Jalalabad, in the interest of public safety and for the speedy normalization and establishment of public order," it said in a statement.