Violence continues in Kyrgyzstan as thousands flee

Smoke was rising in the streets of Osh and sporadic gunfire could be heard Monday as ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan continued.

Tens of thousands of Uzbeks, who are traditionally concentrated in this area of the country, have fled the ongoing clashes causing one aid official to described the situation as a "humanitarian catastrophe," according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

It is the most serious outbreak of ethnic violence in the former Soviet since 1990, when hundreds died after clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh, the country's second city.

Last month, the country was plunged into chaos when Kurmanbek Bakiev was overthrown after a day of bloody clashes between police and protesters in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Opposition leaders had accused Bakiev of corruption and consolidating power by keeping key economic and security posts in the hands of relatives or close associates.

Kyrgyzstan, with a population of 5.2 million people, is strategically important in the region for gas lines. It is also the home to a Russian and U.S. military bases.

At least 114 people have been killed in the latest clashes and another 1,458 have been wounded, Kyrgystan's national news agency AKI press reported Sunday.

According to one report, the death toll is much higher. Local officials in Osh, the city worst affected by the violence, said at least 500 ethnic Uzbeks have been killed, according to Ferghana.Ru, an independent news agency.

And the situation seemed to be continuing early Monday as a Uzbek neighborhood in Osh looked grim. At least three bodies were on the street buried in rubble. Goats and sheep had been killed and burned in yards. Some homes were vandalized with spray painted signs proclaiming "get out of Kyrgyzstan."

An estimated 80,000 refugees have fled across the Kyrgyz border into neighboring Uzbekistan, according to ICRC spokeswoman Anna Nelson.

Nelson told CNN that ICRC representatives visited refugee camps Sunday in Uzbekistan where 30,000 adults, mostly women, have registered. Each woman, Nelson said, has two or three children with her.

Uzbek authorities are providing refugees with food and shelter, but camps are already inundated by the flood of people crossing the border, Nelson said.

ICRC officials said they saw 250 injured people in the camps, including about 40 Uzbek men with gunshot wounds, according to Nelson.

"We do not yet fully understand the true scale of the humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding in southern Kyrgyzstan," said Francois Blancy, deputy head of the ICRC regional office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Kyrgyzstan hosts a U.S. military transport base that is vital for supplying its troops in Afghanistan. It also has a Russian military base and strategically important natural gas pipelines.

The interim government this weekend worked to quell the upsurge of violence, imposing states of emergency in Osh, where fighting between ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz youths led to mass rioting, and in Jalal-Abad in order to keep the unrest from spreading there, it said.

But the measures did little to calm the situation Sunday. Russia Today reported that the interim government has given police permission to shoot to kill rioters on the streets.

Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) -- comprised of Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan -- are set to meet Monday to discuss the crisis, official Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

The United States is monitoring developments and is calling for a "rapid restoration of peace and public order in the city of Osh and elsewhere where it appears ethnic violence is occurring," according to a statement released Saturday by the State Department.

A small group of expatriates from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan demonstrated outside the White House on Sunday, calling for President Barack Obama's help in ending the crisis.

About 50 people from the Uzbek Iniative Group carried signs reading "Stop the killing" and chanted "Bring peace to Kyrgyzstan."

The group had earlier sent a letter to Obama "urging the United States and the United Nations to assist in bringing a halt to the current ethnic unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan," describing the clashes as "the worst ethnic violence in the region since 1990 when hundreds were killed before the quick intervention of Soviet troops."

Source http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/06/14/kyrgyz.violence/?hpt=T1