Ethnic Uzbeks in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh are barricading themselves into their homes and desperately sending out text messages on their cell phones as shooting continues outside and Kyrgyz gangs are raiding nearby homes, the independent online Uzbek news service uznews.net reported.
Uzbek families in Osh say they do not see any protection coming from Kyrgyz forces and feel vulnerable to attack, uznews.net reported. A young man who gave his first name as Muzaffar and has been sending out text messages says he has barricaded himself and his family in their home in Osh. He said Kyrgyz gangs were going house to house in ethnic Uzbek neighborhoods.
We have small children at home, we want you to open up a corridor for us, we're ready to go even to Uzbekistan.
Russia has sent a humanitarian flight with tents and first aid to the Manas airport for assistance to Osh, regnum.ru reported. Although Roza Otunbayeva, interim president of Kyrgyzstan has asked Russia to send peace-keepers to help control the riots in Osh, Russian troops have not been sent.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement issued in Geneva that it is "extremely concerned about the worsening humanitarian situation in southern Kyrgyzstan" and urged restraint. Séverine Chappaz, the deputy head of the ICRC's mission in Kyrgyzstan, who is currently in Osh, said:
As the death toll reaches 65 in Uzbek-Kyrgyz clashes and Roza Otunbayeva, Kyrgyzstan's interim president has called on Russia for assistance,according to unconfirmed reports, several thousand ethnic Uzbek refugees have fled to the border of Uzbekistan to escape violence in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, ferghana.ru and AKIpress.org reported.
Andrea Berg of Human Rights Watch, currently located in the city center of Osh told EurasiaNet:
The humanitarian situation is becoming tense now especially for vulnerable groups such as pregnant woman, children and the elderly. There is not enough food. The shops and bazaars were looted and burned down. People have whatever they had in the homes from two days ago.
There are unconfirmed reports of between 3,000 and 5,000 gathering at
three points at the Uzbek border.
The actions of the Kyrgyz security forces and military should be investigated regarding unconfirmed but widespread allegations that they participated in the removal of barricades protecting Uzbek neighborhoods in addition to allegedly handing out weapons to ethnic Kyrgyz rioters, Berg added.
Homes and stores were torched all night on June 11-12 in the Osh districts of Cheryomushki and Kalinina, and electricity has been turned off in many areas, AKIpress.org reports. Attacks were also reportedly made on police stations in Aravan district.
More than 2,000 refugees, mainly women, children, and elderly were reported to have crossed the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border, which was officially closed by the Uzbek government, said ferghana.ru,
Kyrgyzstan has closed its borders with China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as the death toll in armed clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the Kyrgyz city of Osh reached 50, with 650 more wounded, regnum.ru reported June 12. The border with Kazakhstan remains open. A state of emergency has been declared in the cities of Osh and Uzgen and also Aravan and Karassu districts of Osh region.
A key factor in the clashes between "the political elite of Kyrgyzstan" and leaders of the ethnic Uzbek population in the south is the status of the Uzbek language, the independent online Uzbek news service ferghana.ru reported. On June 1, two weeks after clashes broke out in Jalalal-Abad, members of the Uzbek national center in Osh distributed an appeal protesting what they termed "the violation of the rights of Uzbeks on the use of their native language."
The authors of the appeal say there are about one million ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, which they consider their "historic homeland." The Uzbeks complained that there was a lack of television broadcasting on the state channels KTR and ElTR in their native language. The draft constitution, the subject of a referendum to be held June 27, does not mention that Uzbek language, says ferghana.ru.
Efforts have been made to poll citizens on their attitude toward multilingualism in Kyrgyzstan but observers say that various media in different languages will tend to skew the results of such polls, making them untrustworthy. Uzbeks have also complained of a lack of representation in local governing bodies. Local politicians don't believe lack of minority representation is a problem, but they may not be acknowleding the growth of the Uzbek population, say observers.
Vakhidjan Ergashev, a businessman and public figure in Jalal-Abad, says:
Clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks have left residents of Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second city, fearful of protracted ethnic violence, witnesses tell EurasiaNet.
The disturbances started around midnight, June 11, reportedly after a small fight between a local Uzbek and Kyrgyz.
Thousands reportedly rallied into early morning. Cars are on fire and some shops have been looted. Shots have been heard in different parts of the city.
AKIpress reports that authorities have declared a state of emergency. Acting Defense Minister Ismail Isakov is also reportedly en route to the South.
One cause for the chaos may be the recent move of Osh Police Chief Kursant Asanov to Bishkek. Asanov was well respected by both Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the ethnically mixed city. He is credited with calming the situation after tensions on May 1.
The newly appointed official from Bishkek does not have the respect of either group in Osh, a source well-connected with the local government told EurasiaNet.org early on June 11.
This post offers two eyewitness accounts of the fighting in Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan on May 14, when organized provisional government supporters stopped two foreign journalists from photographing the scene.
David Trilling:
When the shooting started, Dalton Bennett and I were on the provisional government supporters’ end of Prospekt Lenina. About 200 meters separated the groups. Earlier, we had mingled on the Bakiyev side, on the main square in front of the governor’s office, but the hostile looks prompted us to hide our cameras and walk around the block, along a parallel street, to the men hoisting Ata-Meken flags in support of the provisional government. We thought we would be safer there.
Though the supporters of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev surrounding the governor’s office had some guns, and a large number of Molotov Cocktails, I saw more guns on the provisional government side: hunting rifles and Kalashnikovs.
No one on either side wore a uniform.
A few minutes after we arrived, the two sides clashed: hurling rocks and shooting towards at each other. I am unsure who started the firing.
Split from Dalton by the panicked crowd, I photographed the clashes from within the crowd of provisional government supporters for about 45 minutes. The group – many wearing yellow armbands to differentiate themselves from Bakiyev supporters– was of mixed ethnicity while the Bakiyev supporters were entirely Kyrgyz.
During a lull, shortly before the shooting stopped and, somehow, the Bakiyev supporters melted away, I was surrounded by a group of angry men, including a prominent Uzbek community leader who had, the night before, instructed ethnic Uzbeks to come out and support the provisional government.
