Kyrgyzstan violence prompts Uzbeks to seal border

UZBEKISTAN CLOSED its border with Kyrgyzstan yesterday after about 100,000 Uzbeks fled ethnic riots that have prompted a Russian-led security body to consider sending troops to the Central Asian nation.

Officials say more than 120 people have been killed and some 1,500 injured in clashes between ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz gangs and security forces in southern Kyrgyzstan. But aid groups claim the casualty figures are really much higher.

Kyrgyzstan’s interim leaders say the violence is organised by supporters of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who fled the country after an uprising in April, while others blame criminal gangs in and around the cities of Osh and Jalalabad, home to most of Kyrgyzstan’s ethnic Uzbeks. The United Nations’ human rights commissioner Navi Pillay denounced “orchestrated, targeted and well-planned” attacks against the Uzbek community.

As accounts of horrific violence mounted, Uzbekistan appealed for international help in handling the influx of refugees from Kyrgyzstan, which hosts US and Russian military bases, borders China and is close to war-wracked Afghanistan. “Today we will stop accepting refugees from the Kyrgyz side because we have no place to accommodate them and no capacity to cope with them,” said Uzbekistan’s deputy prime minister Abdullah Aripov. “If we have the ability to help them and to treat them of course we will open the border.”

Community leaders have said more than 100,000 Uzbeks have crossed into Uzbekistan. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimated 80,000 refugees had crossed while 15,000 were waiting at the border.

The ICRC’s head of operations for Central Asia, Pascale Meige Wagner, said “there is a will to harm and kill that is going in Kyrgzystan. We’re far from seeing the end of this crisis. We don’t know where’s the next hot spot.

“We hear about bodies not being recovered in Osh and Jalalabad. We do believe that once the situation is bit quieter in those two towns, we’ll have a better idea . . . ”

Moscow has sent at least 150 paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan to protect its military facilities in the country. The Moscow-led security bloc of ex-Soviet republics, known as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), said it might intervene to quell violence.

“We have not ruled out using any means that the CSTO has at its disposal,” said Russia’s national security chief Nikolai Patrushev as CSTO officials met over the crisis.

The group’s Russian secretary general, Nikolai Bordyuzha, added: “The CSTO has at its disposal everything that is needed to act in such situations, including a peacekeeping contingent . . . and collective rapid deployment forces of the Central Asian region.”

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev called the situation “intolerable”. “This is extremely dangerous for this region, and for this reason it is necessary to do everything possible to put an end to such acts,” he said.