Osh/Moscow, June 15 (DPA) Uzbekistan closed its border with strife-torn neighbour Krygyzstan Tuesday, after tens of thousands of Uzbek refugees fled the inter-ethnic violence in the former Soviet republic.
The official death toll from six days of fighting and looting in the south of Krygyzstan now stands at at least 170, with Unicef estimating there are around 100,000 refugees fleeing the conflict.
‘We simply have no more capacity,’ Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister Abdulla Aripow told the CA news agency.
Krygyzstan, which plays host to both Russian and US military bases, saw violent protests in April, which overthrew President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
He fled to exile in Belarus, but has denied whipping up tensions in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad, where his support is concentrated, and the scene of most of the current fighting.
China has already evacuated 200 of its citizens from the country, with plans to evacuate 400 more later Tuesday, as Kyrgyzstan descends into something close to civil war.
Aid organisations have described a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’, with suspicions that the toll may be far higher than currently established.
Uzbekistan has called for urgent medical supplies, saying it needs medicines, beds and tents for the displaced population.
Overnight in New York, the UN condemned the rising violence. President of the Security Council Claude Heller urged people to remain calm and called for a return to law and order, while calling for more food and equipment to be sent.
Witnesses speak of seeing bodies littering the streets of the second city of Osh, mass graves of unidentified bodies, and fears that Uzbeks are not reporting deaths to the Krygyz institutions.
Some speculation puts the death toll at 2,000 in Osh and Jalal-Abad.
Unicef has begun a relief effort at the Krygyzstan border with Uzbekistan, with six trucks arriving with water, blankets and medicines.
It estimates over 90 per cent of the refugees are women and children.
Although Uzbekistan has utilised schools and other buildings as emergency shelter, the decision to close the border was criticized.
‘I am very concerned that the authorities have closed the border,’ said the head of Unicef in Uzbekistan, Jean-Michel Delmotte.
Kyrgyz interim Deputy Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev has warned that deadly rioting in southern Kyrgyzstan could spread to the capital, Bishkek.
China’s official Xinhua news agency quoted Atambayev as saying the government was ‘well prepared for possible violence’ in Bishkek and the northern region of Chui.
There are expectations in Kyrgyzstan that Russian peacekeeping soldiers are to be deployed to the south of the country.
That was the case 20 years ago when similar unrest broke out and Soviet troops were sent to restore order.
