Kyrgyzstan Appeals For Outside Help As Death Toll Rises

Kyrgyzstan Appeals For Outside Help As Death Toll Rises

June 12, 2010
By RFE/RL

Kyrgyzstan has appealed for outside help to quell rioting and interethnic violence that has claimed at least 51 lives in the south of the country.

Interim leader Roza Otunbaeva told reporters today she has sent a letter to the Russian government asking Moscow to help resolve the ongoing conflict in Osh, and that she welcomed help from other countries.

"We have appealed to friendly countries,” Otunbaeva said. “Since yesterday, the situation has been spiraling out of control and we need some kind of [help from] third forces, from a third country, a country other than Kyrgyzstan. We need the help of another [country's] armed forces to pacify the situation."

The interim government also appealed today to retired police and army officers to travel to Osh to prevent ethnic clashes.

The 24.kg news agency quotes government spokesman Azimbek Beknazarov as saying "the authorities will be grateful for any [retired officer] volunteers who are ready to help prevent civil war in the south of Kyrgyzstan."

According to the country's health officials, at least 51 people have died and some 700 have been injured since the violence began early on June 11 in the city of Osh and nearby areas.

The clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek youth spilled over into battles between bigger groups amidst attempts by law enforcement to restrain them.

The interim government has declared a state of emergency in the area after sending in troops along with armored vehicles and helicopters hours after the violence broke out in the south.

RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service correspondent in Osh, Alisher Toksonbaev, says gunfire can still be heard in the city today, and that many Osh residents are fleeing the city.

"There are barricades everywhere in the city [made by local people], and they don't let journalists pass,” Toksonbaev said. “Highways connecting Osh with Jalal-Abad province are almost completely closed. The city is under blockade."

Electricity and gas supplies were cut off in Osh since June 11 and public transportation is not functioning. The city's bazaar has been set alight, as were many other buildings downtown, Toksonbaev reports.

Several residential houses were reportedly set on fire, including houses in Uzbek neighborhoods.

Ethnic Tensions

There are extensive reports about clashes between the local Kyrgyz and the area's sizeable Uzbek minority. Kyrgyzstan's interim authorities accused "destructive" elements of instigating interethnic violence in the country.

Andrea Berg, a Central Asia researcher for international group Human Rights Watch, expressed concern about reported attacks on ethnic Uzbeks, and called on Kyrgyz authorities to take "urgent action to protect all groups in southern Kyrgyzstan from ethnic reprisals in the wake of recent rioting."

"Last night the situation was calm in the area where I've been staying,” Berg told RFE/RL from Osh. “However, I have information from my acquaintances living in Uzbek neighborhoods near the main railway station and provincial hospital, who say the situation there is appalling. They say some drunken Kyrgyz came to the area -- and they are not local Kyrgyz -- and that they were killing people. Now I have such information from two sources that Uzbeks, in big groups both in cars and by foot, are fleeing toward Uzbekistan's border."

Interim authorities said today a border point with Uzbekistan near Osh is open from the Kyrgyz side.

RFE/RL correspondent Toksonbaev said "there are many masked men moving in the city, who appeared to be shooting both at Uzbeks and Kyrgyz."

"They speak both Kyrgyz and Uzbek perfectly, so it's very confusing and difficult to determine who these men are," he said.

"Soldiers and police forces move only in the city center and areas where tension is high and people call for help. But men in black masks are seen in all parts of the city. They come, shoot, and leave. Even the police and forces from the Defense Ministry are not able to hunt them down," Toksonbaev said.

The situation has been unstable in the south since the ouster of the former President Kurmanbek Bakiev in the aftermath of a popular uprising in April that led to regime change in Bishkek.

Support for Bakiev has been strongest in the south, where the president hails from.

Dubbed the country's "southern capital," Osh -- with a population of some 220,000 -- is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan.

Written by Farangis Najibullah with material from RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/Deathtoll_In_Kyrgyz_Violence_Rises_To_50/2069306.html

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Kyrgyzstan Appeals For Outside Help As Death Toll Rises