Kyrgyz violence level 'alarming'

UNHCR says 200,000 people have been internally displaced by the fighting in Kyrgyzstan [AFP]




Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/20106164631604263.html


Rapes and killings against children and women are happening at an alarming rate in southern Kyrgyzstan as ethnic violence continues, the UN says.

At least 176 people have been killed so far in the unrest in the Central Asian nation, which began on Friday.

Kyrgyz authorities admit that the toll could be several times higher than the official numbers.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said 200,000 people have been displaced within the country and an additional 75,000 have fled to Uzbekistan seeking safety.

Separately, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has reported that 90 per cent of the refugees from the fighting were children, women and the elderly.

Many children have suffered from physical and mental violence during the unrest, it said.

Accounts of rape

Among those who have made it across the border into Uzbekistan were three sisters, aged between 16 and 23, who had been raped in front of each other by a mob of ethnic Kyrgyz men, an Uzbek doctor said.

"These girls were raped recently and by a lot of men and for several hours, according to their injuries," Mukaddas Majidova, a doctor in the Uzbek town of Khoja-Obod, told the AFP news agency.

Anna Neistat, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera: "There are allegations of sexual abuse, we have not been able to confirm them so far."

Uzbekistan closed the border on Monday to all except those with fresh wounds or special needs, saying it did not have resources to cope with the mass exodus.

It reopened three checkpoints to let in more than 60 wounded people late on Tuesday.

The US has promised Kyrgystan's interim government $800,000 in emergency aid funds and has dispatched Robert Blake, its special envoy, to the country.

Roza Otunbayeva, Kyrgyzstan's interim president, initially called for Russia to send peacekeepers, but later rescinded the request.

"There is not a need to send peacekeeping forces," she said.

"We hope to deal with this situation with our own forces," she said, claiming that clashes are "on the wane".

But Robin Forestier-Walker, Al Jazeera's correspondent reporting from the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan on Wednesday, said that fighting continued overnight.

"Last night saw [an] exchange of small-arms fire and larger artillery rounds", including tank shells fired by Kyrgz military forces, he said.

UN suspicions

Against this backdrop of continued tensions, suspicion is growing that the fighting between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz had been deliberately ignited.

The UN says there is evidence that the violence was co-ordinated and began with five simultaneous attacks in the city of Osh.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said "it might be wrong to cast it, at least in origin, as an inter-ethnic conflict.

"There seems to be other agendas driving it initially".

He said in Geneva on Tuesday that his office had collected witness accounts, including from UN staff, in the cities of Osh and Jalal-abad.

"Several of these reports suggest that the incident began with five simultaneous attacks in Osh involving men wearing balaclavas and carrying guns. It looked like they were seeking to provoke a reaction," Colville said.

He said that one of the attacks was on a gym which he said was "known to be the haunt of a criminal gang.

"Targeting that gym was likely to provoke a reaction."

However, the UN was not in a position to make any direct accusations against any particular individuals or groups at this point, Colville said.

Bakiyev blamed

Witnesses have said the unrest started with mobs of Kyrgyz men attacking ethnic Uzbeks and torching their homes.

The interim government, which assumed power after the president was overthrown in April, has repeatedly accused Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the ousted president, of stoking the conflict.

Otunbayeva, the interim leader, says she has "no doubt" Bakiyev is to blame.

"His sons have been discussing that they want to organise such a crisis and we thought not of such a scale and not of such a deepness," she told Al Jazeera in an interview on Tuesday.

About a month ago, an audio recording was posted anonymously on YouTube with a caption identifying the voices as those of Bakiyev's son Maxim and his uncle Janybek.

The men were discussing plans to arm groups to spread chaos across the south of Kyrgyzstan, sometime in June.

Both men have denied the authenticity of the tape and Bakiyev has repeatedly said he has no involvement in the violence.

The interim government has accused Maxim Bakiyev of financing the ongoing clashes.

The younger Bakiyev was arrested by UK authorities on Monday as he landed at Farnborough airport in a private aircraft.

The Kyrgyz government said it would seek his extradition.

UN urges halt to Kyrgyzstan clashes

Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/201061525425315637.html


The UN Security Council has condemned the escalating ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan, calling for calm and the restoration of order following the bloodiest ethnic clashes seen in the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Four days of deadly rioting has left at least 138 people dead, more than 1,800 wounded and forced thousands of refugees to flee across the border into Uzbekistan.

In a statement issued after a briefing late on Monday by Undersecretary-General B Lynn Pascoe, the Security Council said it supported efforts by Ban Ki-moon, the UN chief, and regional organisations "to deal in an appropriate way with the situation".

The council also stressed the need to support the delivery of humanitarian assistance "in an urgent manner".

In his briefing, Pascoe called for the urgent creation of a humanitarian corridor for aid to be delivered in Kyrgyzstan, saying the UN was trying to help people affected by the violence and by shortages of food, water and electricity, especially in Osh.

"We talked about the need to get something in there right away to make it so we could get the humanitarian stuff through," Pascoe told reporters after the meeting.

"It's also a great concern of ours about the refugees - whether they can get across the border," he added, referring to the Uzbekistan border to where thousands of ethnic Uzbeks have fled.

"What we are trying to do is get (Uzbekistan) enough assistance there that they can feel comfortable with additional refugees coming through."

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday that more than 75,000 refugees had fled into Uzbekistan as a result of the violence, with thousands of others reportedly waiting on the Kyrgyz side of the border.

Yves Giovannoni, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Central Asia, told Al Jazeera that most of those who had entered Uzbekistan were in urgent need of help.

"Some have relatives in Uzbekistan and can stay with them but most are in makeshift camps - parking lots, schools, industrial plants - and they urgently need support from the Uzbekistan authorities and international community," he said.

Most of the fleeing were ethnic Uzbeks, but there were also reports of Tajiks flocking to the border.

The unrest started in the city of Osh on Thursday, with mobs of Kyrgyz men attacking ethnic Uzbeks and torching their houses.

Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker, reporting from Osh, said the situation appeared to have calmed on Monday night following several days of unrest, but levels of fear remained high.

"We've heard sporadic shots ringing out earlier this evening but now it's quiet in the city centre," he said.

"But people on both sides of this increasing divide between the ethnic Uzbek community and the Kyrgyz community are absolutely terrified. People are ready and packed, ready to go at the first sign of trouble or danger."

Witnesses and officials have repeatedly claimed that fighting had not erupted spontaneously between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks but had been organised by some third party.

Soronbai Jenbekov, the regional governor of Osh, told Al Jazeera: "There are still attempts by third parties to destroy peace between the two ethnic communities.

"But now everyone has realised this and we're working together to stop them. Our forces haven't yet shot any Uzbeks or Kyrgyz – even though both sides are armed."

His comments came after fleeing ethnic Uzbeks accused Kyrgyz government forces of taking part in the mob violence.

Border appeal

On Monday Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to "keep their borders open to anyone, irrespective of age or gender, who is in need of sanctuary.

"It seems indiscriminate killings, including of children, and rapes have been taking place on the basis of ethnicity," her office said in a statement.

Uzbekistan ordered its borders closed earlier on Monday, saying it could not receive more people.

"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," Abdullah Aripov, the deputy prime minister, said.

The UNHCR said it was preparing to send aid and emergency teams to Uzbekistan.

Several planes arrived at Osh's airport with tonnes of medical supplies from the World Health Organisation on Monday, after reports that stores have been looted and food supplies were scarce.

There have been claims that Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the deposed Kyrgyz president who now is exiled in Belarus, has been orchestrating a campaign of ethnic conflict in the provinces of Osh and Jalal'abad.

The interim government said on Monday it had arrested a "well-known person" suspected of stoking the violence, but gave no other details.

Suspects from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan were also detained and claimed to have been hired by supporters of Bakiyev, Farid Niyazov, a government spokesman, said.

Arrest

Kenishbek Duishebayev, the Kyrgyz security chief, later said on television that Bakiyev's younger son, Maxim, had been arrested in Britain when he flew into a Hampshire airport on a leased private plane.

Prosecutors, who placed him on an international wanted-list in May, alleged that companies he owned avoided almost $80m in taxes on aviation fuel sold to suppliers of a US air base in the country.

The United States called for a co-ordinated international response to the unrest.

Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, had spoken with officials in the interim Kyrgyz government as well as some of the Central Asian country's neighbours to discuss the unrest, Philip Crowley, the state department spokesman, said.

The Kyrgyz interim government has asked Russia to send troops to stabilise the situation in the south, but the Kremlin turned down the request.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, on Monday condemned the violence and said he had spoken Roza Otunbayeva, the interim president.

He said "tough" action must be taken to prevent further unrest and bloodshed.

Violence rages in south Kyrgyzstan

Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/20106146100726983.html


Sporadic gunfire has continued throughout the night in southern Kyrgyzstan following three days of unrest between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in which at least 117 people have been killed.

Fires set by rioters burned across the southern city of Osh on Monday as tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks fled the spiralling violence.

At least 1,400 people have been injured in the fighting, according to the country's interim government, which has struggled to stem the nation's worst ethnic violence since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

However, doctors and rights workers have warned that the real number of casualties might be much higher because ethnic Uzbeks may be too afraid to seek hospital treatment.

Meanwhile, up to 80,000 ethnic Uzbeks - mostly women and children - were reported to have crossed the border into neighbouring Uzbekistan to escape the unrest.

Most were being housed in hastily-set up camps along the border.

Ongoing clashes

Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker, reporting from the border, said there was a steady stream of ethnic Uzbeks trying to cross, adding that violence in the city of Osh was ongoing on Sunday.

"We set out into the city earlier today but had to turn back because it was simply too dangerous," he said.

Our correspondent quoted witnesses as saying that three Uzbek neighbourhoods were under attack, but stressed that he had only been able to hear the Uzbek side.

Many of the fleeing ethnic Uzbeks accused Kyrgyz law enforcement officials of abetting gangs of ethnic Kyrgyz.

There have also been claims that Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the former Kyrgyz president who was ousted in April, has been orchestrating a campaign of ethnic conflict along with his supporters.

Michael Andersen, a Danish filmmaker who has been living in Osh, said "it's very likely that Bakiyev and his cronies are behind this".

"I lived in Osh for several years and when you live there, you don't feel any everyday tension between Uzbeks and the Kyrgyz," he told Al Jazeera.

"This is clearly something that is constructed and provoked by some third party."

Bakiyev, who is in exile in Belarus, has denied any involvement in the violence.

Russian troops

Kyrgyz authorities on Sunday sent five planes of soldiers from the capital Bishkek to Jalal'abad, where the worst of the fighting appeared to be centred.

But the Kyrgyz interim government has also sought Russia's help to quell the violence, but Moscow has declined the request to send military assistance.

However, Russia sent hundreds of paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan on Sunday to protect its military facilities in the north, the Russian Interfax news agency reported.

"The mission of the force that has landed is to reinforce the defence of Russian military facilities and ensure security of Russian military servicemen and their families," a Russian military source was quoted as saying.

The south of the former Soviet republic used to be the stronghold of the deposed president.

The country is currently led by a coalition of rival politicians that coalesced earlier this year in opposition to Bakiyev, who was deposed after anti-government protests resulted in deadly clashes.

Interim authorities had planned to hold a referendum to approve a new constitution on June 27, but the likelihood of that vote taking place looks increasingly slim.