At least 37 people were killed when ethnic conflict flared in Kyrgyzstan's second-largest city Osh today, the worst outbreak of violence in the Central Asian state since the president was overthrown in April.
The interim government in Kyrgyzstan, which hosts US and Russian military bases, declared a state of emergency in Osh and several local rural districts after hundreds of youths battled with guns and steel bars, setting shops ablaze in the city.
A Reuters correspondent said the Uzbek neighbourhood, Cheryomushki, was ablaze. She said she had seen clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, many people building barricades and a crowd setting fire to two large restaurants and a supermarket.
The government, led by Roza Otunbayeva, sent troops and armoured vehicles to quell gangs roaming the streets with sticks, stones and petrol bombs after a night of violence.
"Regrettably for us, we're clearly talking about a stand-off between two ethnicities. We need (to muster) forces and means to stop and calm these people down, and this is what we are doing right now," Ms Otunbayeva told reporters in the capital Bishkek.
She said crowds of "weird and suspicious-looking people" were streaming down to Osh "from all directions." She did not mention the ethnicity of these people. Political tensions between the agricultural south and the north of Kyrgyzstan exist alongside rife ethnic and clan rivalries.
A police officer, speaking from a checkpoint outside Osh, said that around 300 cars had massed at a city entrance.
He said some of these people had come from villages to rescue their relatives living in Osh. But there were also some 2,000 mainly Kyrgyz men with sticks and hunting rifles, he said.
The violence occurred in the southern power base of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, deposed in April by a popular revolt. Mr Bakiyev's supporters briefly seized government buildings in the south on May 13th, defying central authorities in Bishkek.
Renewed turmoil in the impoverished former Soviet republic will fuel concern among regional players Russia, China and the United States, which uses its air base in the country's north - about 300 km (186 miles) from Osh - as an Afghan supply route.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev told a regional security summit in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent that Moscow wanted a swift end to the unrest. Chinese leader Hu Jintao echoed him, saying, "China continues to help Kyrgyzstan as much as it can."
Mr Medvedev said later the Moscow-led security pact of former Soviet states, known as the ODKB, could not intervene in Kyrgyzstan because this conflict was an internal affair.
At least 37 people were killed and 523 hurt during Friday's violence, the Health Ministry said. Many suffered gunshot wounds. Officials said the riots were sparked by a fight, possibly in a casino, which fast escalated into ethnic clashes.
Reuters