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Kyrgyz leader estimates 2,200 dead as humanitarian crisis grows

18 June 2010 19:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Kyrgyzstan’s interim leader said Friday that as many as 2,200 people may have died in the ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan as she made her first visit to the region more than a week after the violence began, APA reports quoting â€œThe Washington Postâ€.
Speaking in Osh, the country’s second-largest city, President Roza Otunbayeva also pledged to rebuild the city, restore trust between Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks and resolve a building refugee crisis.
"We will do everything so people can return to their homes," she said as she met with grieving families who berated her for the government’s failure to protect their loved ones, as well as representatives of the Uzbek community, which suffered the brunt of violence and has barricaded itself in its neighborhoods.
Otunbayeva, who did not visit the Uzbek enclaves because of security concerns, said the government’s official figure of 223 deaths in the clashes should be increased tenfold because many victims were buried without being taken to hospitals, the Associated Press reported.
The United Nations said Thursday that some 400,000 people have been driven from their homes by ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan, doubling its estimate of the number of refugees here and acknowledging that it was having trouble delivering aid to them because of continuing violence.
The new U.N. assessment highlighting the severity of the crisis came as the Kyrgyz military appeared to run into difficulties in its effort to restore order to the region, where perhaps more than 2 million people live.
In a joint letter on Friday, two influential organizations, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group, called on the U.N. Security Council to move "without delay" to work with regional groups to send an international police or military force to Kyrgyzstan that could establish a corridor for the delivery of aid, provide security for refugees to return home and make it possible for reconciliation programs to begin.
"The instability in southern Kyrgyzstan cannot be wished away, and without a decisive international response there is considerable risk that widespread violence will reignite," the letter said.
For a third straight day on Thursday, conditions seemed to improve, with more residents feeling safe enough to venture out of their homes. But witnesses reported sporadic gunfire as troops patrolled the streets, including shots fired by unidentified gunmen at aid workers attempting to distribute food.
A children’s home was reported to have been looted and set on fire, and in the afternoon, a dark plume of smoke could be seen rising from a village outside Osh, the country’s second-largest city, where several Uzbek districts have been burned to the ground.
In another incident that suggested the volatility of the situation, a motorist stopped in Osh at what appeared to be a military checkpoint was asked his ethnicity, and when he said he was Uzbek, one of the uniformed men allegedly drew a knife and threatened to slit his throat. The driver tried to escape but was shot, according to his niece, Zebeil Hamrayava, 32, who said he had been hospitalized in serious condition.
Hamrayava said it was unclear whether the men at the checkpoint were Kyrgyz soldiers or impostors. But her account of the shooting dovetailed with other reports of Kyrgyz men in military uniforms targeting ethnic Uzbeks who leave their enclaves.