Troops battle to stop raging ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan with 51 dead, about 700 wounded

Ethnic clashes rage in Kyrgyzstan, 51 dead

OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Police and soldiers struggled Saturday to stop ethnic clashes in this Central Asian country that have killed more than 50 people, as gangs of armed young Kyrgyz men marched on Uzbek neighborhoods and fires raged throughout the city.

The official death toll has climbed to at least 51, while about 700 people have been wounded, the Health Ministry said. The real figures may be higher because doctors and human rights workers said ethnic Uzbeks were afraid to seek hospital treatment.

Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks were fleeing toward the nearby border with Uzbekistan.

The violence that broke out Friday in Osh, the country’s second-largest city, is the worst since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country.

It poses a decisive test of the provisional government’s ability to control the country, where the U.S. and Russia both have military air bases. The government needs stability to hold a June 27 vote on a new constitution and go ahead with elections for a new parliament in October.

The government declared a state of emergency in and around Osh and dispatched armored vehicles, troops and helicopters to pacify the situation. Fighting quieted down overnight but resumed with new strength Saturday. Much of central Osh was on fire, while homes in Uzbek neighborhood also burned.

“Young men in white masks are marauding and stealing from the remaining stores, offices and houses, and then setting them on fire,” said Bakyt Omorkulov, a member of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a non-governmental organization.

The interim government acknowledged that it was struggling to establish control.

“The situation in Osh remains very, very difficult,” Azimbek Beknazarov, an acting prime minister, told journalists in Bishkek, the capital. “We are doing everything we can, but there is no improvement yet.”

Police and residents said groups of young Kyrgyz men were streaming into Osh by road from other parts of the country and marching toward Uzbek neighborhoods. They were armed with metal bars and some had automatic weapons.

Omorkulov said ethnic Uzbeks in the Cheryomushki and Besh-Kuprik neighborhoods called to say their houses were on fire and they were terrified. “They called us and were sobbing into the phone, but what can we do?” Omorkulov said.

From the Osh airport, where hundreds of arriving passengers were stranded, fire from heavy machine guns and automatic weapons was heard as troops tried to gain control of roads into the city.

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Leila Saralayeva reported from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.