Parts of Kyrgystan's second-largest city were set ablaze today as the death toll rose to 50 in a second day of ethnic conflict, the Central Asian state's worst violence since the president was toppled in April. The interim government in Kyrgyzstan, which hosts US and Russian military bases, said it was powerless to stop armed gangs from burning down the homes and businesses of ethnic Uzbeks in one part of Osh. Gun battles raged throughout the night.
Kyrgyzstan's interim leader Roza Otunbayeva appealed to the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to send military forces to help quell the ethnic violence. "Entire streets are on fire," the interior ministry spokesman Rakhmatillo Akhmedov said. "The situation is very bad. There is no sign of it stopping. Homes have been set ablaze." Kyrgyzstan, a poor ex-Soviet state of 5.3 million people, declared a state of emergency in Osh and several local rural districts early on Friday after rival ethnic gangs fought each other with guns, iron bars and petrol bombs. Renewed turmoil in Kyrgyzstan will fuel concern in Russia, the United States and neighbour China. Washington uses an air base at Manas in the north of the country, about 300 km from Osh, to supply its forces in Afghanistan.
A Reuters correspondent in Osh said gun battles had taken place through the night in an Uzbek neighbourhood. Gas was shut off to Osh and some neighbourhoods have no electricity. Ethnic Uzbeks were fleeing to the border, said Farid Niyazov, spokesman for the interim Kyrgyz government. One witness said some women and children had made it across to the Uzbek town of Marhamat, 60 km from Osh, and camps had been set up for those without family in Uzbekistan.
A spokeswoman for the Kyrgyz Health Ministry said at least 50 people had been killed and 663 wounded in the violence, which is taking place in the southerly power base of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, deposed in April by a popular revolt. "Everywhere is burning: Uzbek homes, restaurants and cafes. The whole town is covered in smoke," a local human rights worker Dilmurad Ishanov, an ethnic Uzbek, said by telephone from Osh.
"We don't need the Kyrgyz authorities. We need Russia. We need troops. We need help." *Agencies
