100,000 Uzbeks have fled ethnic violence

INTERNATIONAL AID started arriving in Central Asia yesterday amid warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe among at least 100,000 people who fled ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan.

Officials say 189 people died and about 1,900 were injured in fighting that erupted last Thursday in the city of Osh and surrounding areas of southern Kyrgyzstan, but relief groups believe many more people died in violence that appeared to target ethnic Uzbeks.

Kyrgyzstan’s interim government blames gangs linked to former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was ousted in a bloody uprising in April, and a United Nations agency has said inter-ethnic fighting was sparked by five co-ordinated attacks in Osh by masked gunmen.

About 100,000 Uzbeks fled into Uzbekistan to escape the violence, and about 100,000 others are thought to have been displaced inside Kyrgyzstan as gangs roamed the streets of Osh and nearby towns, shooting, raping and beating Uzbeks and razing their homes and businesses.

“What is happening is already a tragedy and it could become a catastrophe,” said Antonio Guterres, head of the UN High Commission for Refugees.

A plane carrying 800 tents from the UNHCR landed yesterday near the makeshift refugee camps established in Uzbekistan, where conditions are becoming increasingly squalid.

Six planes bringing some 240 tonnes of UNHCR aid were expected to arrive by the end of the week.

Three planes bringing tents and blankets from Russia also arrived in Kyrgyzstan.

However, despite a lull in the violence and the presence of many Kyrgyz soldiers on the streets of Osh, relief workers reported that supplies were only trickling into the city and that aid was being stolen by gangs of gunmen.

“It is to the point that (Uzbeks) are not letting Kyrgyz doctors in because of the fear between the two groups now,” said UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville. “It is vital that aid is not perceived as going along ethnic lines to either side.”

Russia says it will only send troops to help stabilise Kyrgyzstan under the auspices of a post-Soviet security group called the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, while the United States is sending aid and its top diplomat for Central Asia, Robert Blake.

A US State Department spokesman said Mr Blake would meet Kyrgyzstan’s government on Friday and Saturday, and noted that “there is in fact an emerging humanitarian crisis in Kyrgyzstan and we are prepared to respond further to that”.