Kyrgyzstan violence mounts refugee crisis

OSH - Ethnic Kyrgyzs and Uzbeks clashed again overnight in fighting which included the use of grenades, the interim government said Wednesday, as the estimated refugee crisis in the strife-torn central Asian republic escalated rapidly.

With an official death toll of 179 from nearly a week of intercommunal violence, but suspected to be far higher, the number of civilians fleeing the violence is now put at 275,000.

Early Wednesday the situation remained extremely tense in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad, where most of the clashes have been concentrated.

The US diplomat Robert Blake is to fly to the capital, Bishkek, to deal with the “dramatic humanitarian crisis”, according to the US embassy in Moscow.

In Osh and Jalal-Abad, many residential areas were blocked off from rescue workers and police officers, Kyrgyz news agency Akipress said.

In Moscow the head of the Kygryz Security Council, Alik Orosow, was to hold talks with Russia on a possible military deployment by Russian forces to quell the violence.

Both the US and Russia have military bases in the landlocked ex-Soviet state.

Orosow was to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the crisis.

Meanwhile, at least 60,000 refugees were stranded at the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which closed its border to fleeing civilians Tuesday.

Late Tuesday the United Nations advisor on the prevention of genocide said the targeting of ethnic Uzbeks amounted to possible “ethnic cleansing”.

Ethnic tensions erupted in April following the ouster of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, pitting Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities against each other in the south. Renewed violence in June was aimed at the Uzbeks in particular, the UN noted.

Bakiyev’s son, Maxim, Tuesday sought political asylum in Britain, after arriving by private plane.

“The pattern and scale of the violence, which resulted in the mass displacement of Uzbeks from South Kyrgyzstan, could amount to ethnic cleansing,” said Edward Luck, the UN special adviser on genocide.

The fighting has raised concern in the UN Security Council as well as that of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The council issued Monday a call for calm and the restoration of law and order while condemning the violence.

Amnesty International has called for all of Kyrgyzstan’s neighbours - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and China - to open their borders to the refugees.

“These individuals cannot return to Uzbekistan, where they are at risk of torture and long term imprisonment in cruel and inhuman conditions,” the human rights organisation said in a statement out of London.

Ban Tuesday spoke separately by telephone with Roza Otunbaeva, the acting prime minister of the Interim Government of Kyrgyzstan, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the UN said. Ban was in Freetown, Sierra Leone, when he talked to Otunbaeva and Lavrov.

Ban has sent a special representative, Miroslav Jenca, to the region to coordinate relief operations from several UN agencies.

Tuesday the European Commission announced that the EU would send 5 million euros ($6.1 million) in aid.