With violence currently on the ebb in southern Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks who fled across the border to Uzbekistan are pondering their options. While some are returning home, many others are hesitating out of fear of a renewal of interethnic clashes.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 75,000 ethnic Uzbeks, mostly women and children, crossed into Uzbekistan from Kyrgyzstan in mid-June, amid violent clashes that left hundreds dead. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive]. Uzbek officials accommodated the majority of refugees in about 18 camps along the border in Andijan Province.
A report by an inter-agency UN mission that examined conditions in five refugee camps in Andijan Province on June 17-18 found “the Uzbek authorities' response was well organized and the refugees are provided with necessary conditions.” The report also said, however, that although humanitarian aid was arriving in the region, the refugee camps required more food, water, shelter, and medical care.
Refugees confirm conditions are not ideal. Speaking on the phone from a camp in Andijan Province, Nigora, a refugee from Osh described crowded conditions in her temporary shelter. “There are long cues for showers and there is not enough water. The biggest problem is that our camp is very overcrowded. We are about 5,000 people, most of us sleep on the ground in military tents,” she told EurasiaNet.org, speaking on condition her last name not be printed. Overcrowding was helping spread various infectious diseases in her camp, she added.
Many refugees interviewed by the UN said that they wished to return home as soon as possible. About 34,000 refugees have already returned to Kyrgyzstan, according to an AKIPress report on June 22.
Tojinisahon Holmatova, a refugee who returned to Kyrgyzstan through the VLKSM border checkpoint on June 20, told EurasiaNet.org that she, her two children and her 70 year-old mother were intent on rejoining the rest of her family, which had remained in Kyrgyzstan throughout the upheaval. According to Holmatova, Uzbek camp authorities have encouraged refugees to return home and have even organized transportation.
While many have left, many more refugees are reluctant to return to Kyrgyzstan. “My parents [who are now in Osh] told me that I should stay in the camp for now. Things are still unstable there. We heard rumors that there will be new clashes,” Nigora said.
Compounding the dilemma that some are confronting about whether to stay or go, Uzbek officials are telling those who want to go back to Kyrgyzstan that they will not be readmitted to Uzbekistan as refugees again, no matter the circumstances.
Even amid the flow of returnees, a substantial number of displaced Uzbeks still on the Kyrgyz side of the border are staying near the frontier, hoping they will get an opportunity to cross into Uzbekistan. Apart from security concerns, some internally displaced persons (IDPs) say they have nowhere else to go.
“Where will the [IDPs] return to? Thousands of homes are burnt down and destroyed. It will take many years to rebuild [them],” an Osh man, whose family is now in Uzbekistan, told EurasiaNet.org on condition of anonymity.
Kyrgyz provisional leaders have tried to assuage Uzbek concerns. Provisional President Roza Otunbayeva, for example, visited the mainly Uzbek district of Aravan on June 21, pledging that authorities in Bishkek were committed to promoting the return of the displaced. “Be assured, we will rebuild both Osh and Jalal-abad,” she said.
In the aftermath of the violence, however, few Uzbeks are willing to take the provisional government at its word. Many Uzbeks believe that provisional leaders are preoccupied with holding a constitutional referendum on June 27 -- a vote designed to legitimize their own rule -- and thus aren’t paying much attention to the refugee issue. Some Uzbek observers also contend that financial constraints and political pressure from Kyrgyz nationalist groups could hamper efforts to get displaced Uzbeks back on their feet.
In Uzbekistan, officials are trying to use the refugee crisis as part of a propaganda campaign to bolster the image of President Islam Karimov’s administration. Nigora, the refugee in Andijan, said that Uzbek security service agents have been working with refugees, telling them to praise conditions in the camps and to praise Karimov in their interviews with local and Western journalists.
One refugee interviewed on June 20 by Andijan State TV claimed: “We are very thankful to President Islam Karimov and the people of Uzbekistan for giving us shelter and food in these difficult times. It once again proved how generous and how merciful the Uzbek state is.”
Some Uzbek journalists who spoke with EurasiaNet.org on condition of anonymity said that allowing refugees to enter the country, and providing limited coverage of their suffering, is designed to show Uzbekistan’s citizens that Karimov is doing something to help Uzbeks from across the border, and thus temper desires for revenge.
Karimov and his lieutenants may worry that if Kyrgyz Uzbeks were to obtain arms and seek retribution against the Kyrgyz, the process could escalate ultimately to threaten the regime in Tashkent.
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