UN, US officials visit site of Kyrgyzstan clashes as humanitarian crisis enters new phase

UN, US officials visit site of Kyrgyzstan clashes

OSH, Kyrgyzstan — U.N. and U.S. officials visited southern Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday to figure out how to help some 375,000 ethnic Uzbeks driven from their homes by violence.

Rampages by majority Kyrgyz mobs that began June 10 killed hundreds of ethnic Uzbeks and reduced entire Uzbek neighborhoods to scorched ruins.

A group led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Eric Schwartz and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres visited the southern city of Osh — the country’s second-largest city and the epicenter of the violence.

U.N. officials say the immediate threat of food and water shortages has largely abated, and emphasis has shifted to providing shelter to thousands of families whose homes were torched by arsonists. Some have found refuge at relatives’ houses, and others in schools, kindergartens and even fields.

In the Kara-Suu district of Osh, tents provided by the UNHCR have been pitched up within the charred remains of Uzbek houses, allowing families to live on the sites of their former homes and begin the painstaking reconstruction effort.

The U.N. has appealed for $71 million in emergency assistance funds, in part to rebuild homes before the winter sets in.

International organizations also plan to assist in reconciliation efforts between Uzbek and Kyrgyz communities. That process will likely be difficult, however, as many ethnic Uzbeks say they have no trust in the authorities and fear new attacks by Kyrgyz mobs.

The official death toll from the violence that tore apart Osh and the nearby city of Jalal-Abad currently stands at 294, although Kyrgyzstan’s interim President Roza Otunbayeva has said as many as 2,000 people died in the rioting.

Otunbayeva’s government came to power in April after former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in mass protests in the capital, Bishkek. It got a boost from Sunday’s referendum on a new constitution that legitimized its grip on power and paved the way for holding parliamentary elections in October.

The government had accused Bakiyev’s supporters of instigating the violence to delay the referendum, a charge that Bakiyev, in self-imposed exile in Belarus, has denied.