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Uzbekistan closes borders to refugees
From Times Online
June 15, 2010
Uzbekistan closes borders to refugees
Uzbekistan last night closed its borders to refugees fleeing neighbouring Kyrgyzstan as the numbers killed in the ethnic violence spiralled and aid agencies reported fresh allegations of atrocities from the survivors.
With over 100,000 refugees pouring into Uzbekistan, Central Asian state’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Aripov said the border would be shut, despite pleas from aid groups and the UN to leave it open.
“Today we will stop accepting refugees from the Kyrgyz side because we have no place to accommodate them and no capacity to cope with them,” he said.
Uzbekistan needed international humanitarian aid to cope, he said.
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“If we have the ability to help them and to treat them of course we will open the border” again, he added.
Mr Aripov said Uzbekistan had registered 45,000 adults from Kyrgyzstan, while another official said there were 65,000 adults in Uzbekistan’s Andijan region alone. The UN’s refugee agency said it was sending aid for 75,000.
Bodies littered the streets of the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh where fresh gunfire rang out, and more fighting was reported in the nearby city of Jalalabad. Scores are reported killed in four days of clashes.
Some of the survivors of the violence have accused government forces of helping armed gangs slaughter ethnic Uzbeks.
The decision to close the border comes as the Kremlin edges closer to military intervention.
An emergency meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) — the Russian-dominated group of former Soviet states — said that it was sending helicopters and lorries to help the Kyrgyz Government to quell fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that has raged for four days in southern Kyrgyzstan. At least 138 people have died and 1,800 have been wounded, although some witnesses believe that the number of deaths is higher.
“This is extremely dangerous for this region and it is necessary to do everything possible to put an end to such acts,” President Medvedev of Russia said after the meeting in Moscow.
Russia sent at least 150 paratroopers to reinforce its own military base outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on Sunday, but it rejected an appeal from the interim president, Roza Otunbayeva, to intervene directly.
The former Kyrgyz President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted in a popular uprising in April, called from exile in Belarus for Russia to lead a CSTO force into the country. The White House said that President Obama was monitoring developments.
The Red Cross said that 80,000 refugees had crossed into Uzbekistan to escape the violence and 15,000 more were massed at the border. Uzbekistan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah Aripov, threatened to close the border last night.
The scale of the slaughter was visible in Osh, where streets were littered with bodies; many charred from fires that have destroyed buildings in whole neighbourhoods. Women and children hid in basements while Uzbek men with makeshift weapons kept nervous guard against Kyrgyz gangs.
Witnesses said that gangs with rifles, iron bars and machetes had set fire to houses and shot people as they fled. “There are at least a thousand people dead here in Osh. We have not been able to register them because they turn us away at the hospital and say it is only for Kyrgyz,” Isamidin Kudbidunov, 27, said.
The interim government has accused Mr Bakiyev’s family of provoking the violence to halt a referendum on June 27 to approve a new constitution; an allegation he denies.
Mr Bakiyev’s son Maksim, 33, has been arrested in Britain after landing at Farnborough airport, a Kyrgyz official said last night. He was held on an Interpol warrant, according to Keneshbek Dushibayev, Kyrgyzstan’s security chief. The former President’s son is wanted for fraud.
June 15, 2010
Uzbekistan closes borders to refugees
Uzbekistan last night closed its borders to refugees fleeing neighbouring Kyrgyzstan as the numbers killed in the ethnic violence spiralled and aid agencies reported fresh allegations of atrocities from the survivors.
With over 100,000 refugees pouring into Uzbekistan, Central Asian state’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Aripov said the border would be shut, despite pleas from aid groups and the UN to leave it open.
“Today we will stop accepting refugees from the Kyrgyz side because we have no place to accommodate them and no capacity to cope with them,” he said.
Uzbekistan needed international humanitarian aid to cope, he said.
Related Links
“If we have the ability to help them and to treat them of course we will open the border” again, he added.
Mr Aripov said Uzbekistan had registered 45,000 adults from Kyrgyzstan, while another official said there were 65,000 adults in Uzbekistan’s Andijan region alone. The UN’s refugee agency said it was sending aid for 75,000.
Bodies littered the streets of the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh where fresh gunfire rang out, and more fighting was reported in the nearby city of Jalalabad. Scores are reported killed in four days of clashes.
Some of the survivors of the violence have accused government forces of helping armed gangs slaughter ethnic Uzbeks.
The decision to close the border comes as the Kremlin edges closer to military intervention.
An emergency meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) — the Russian-dominated group of former Soviet states — said that it was sending helicopters and lorries to help the Kyrgyz Government to quell fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that has raged for four days in southern Kyrgyzstan. At least 138 people have died and 1,800 have been wounded, although some witnesses believe that the number of deaths is higher.
“This is extremely dangerous for this region and it is necessary to do everything possible to put an end to such acts,” President Medvedev of Russia said after the meeting in Moscow.
Russia sent at least 150 paratroopers to reinforce its own military base outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on Sunday, but it rejected an appeal from the interim president, Roza Otunbayeva, to intervene directly.
The former Kyrgyz President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted in a popular uprising in April, called from exile in Belarus for Russia to lead a CSTO force into the country. The White House said that President Obama was monitoring developments.
The Red Cross said that 80,000 refugees had crossed into Uzbekistan to escape the violence and 15,000 more were massed at the border. Uzbekistan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah Aripov, threatened to close the border last night.
The scale of the slaughter was visible in Osh, where streets were littered with bodies; many charred from fires that have destroyed buildings in whole neighbourhoods. Women and children hid in basements while Uzbek men with makeshift weapons kept nervous guard against Kyrgyz gangs.
Witnesses said that gangs with rifles, iron bars and machetes had set fire to houses and shot people as they fled. “There are at least a thousand people dead here in Osh. We have not been able to register them because they turn us away at the hospital and say it is only for Kyrgyz,” Isamidin Kudbidunov, 27, said.
The interim government has accused Mr Bakiyev’s family of provoking the violence to halt a referendum on June 27 to approve a new constitution; an allegation he denies.
Mr Bakiyev’s son Maksim, 33, has been arrested in Britain after landing at Farnborough airport, a Kyrgyz official said last night. He was held on an Interpol warrant, according to Keneshbek Dushibayev, Kyrgyzstan’s security chief. The former President’s son is wanted for fraud.
thats why i dont like ethnic hatred by all sides.
COME Out of Pakistan phobia and focus on the topic in this thread.
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