Angelina Jolie makes low-profile visit to Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Actress Angelina Jolie has quietly returned to Haiti for meetings with Haitian and U.

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Angelina Jolie makes low-profile visit to Haiti

Ethnic Uzbeks refuse to go home in Kyrgyzstan

SURATASH: Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks massed on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan refused to return home Sunday, saying they feared for their lives after violent pogroms and don’t trust Kyrgyz troops to protect them.

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Ethnic Uzbeks refuse to go home in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz army gets control in riot-hit areas; fear grips

OSH, Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyz troops flown into the country”s south fanned out Wednesday across a region ravaged by deadly ethnic riots but avoided Uzbek enclaves where frightened, angry residents reinforced makeshift barricades.

Despite a few bursts of gunfire overnight, the military appeared to succeed in maintaining peace here in Kyrgyzstan”s second-largest city after several days of clashes between Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks that left hundreds dead.

The main road through Jalal-Abad, a nearby town on the edge of the rich fields of the Fergana Valley, offered a telling view of the destruction that has unfolded in southern Kyrgyzstan.

On one side of the street, the University of People”s Friendship is a charred ruin, a symbol of ethnic harmony no more. Across the road, a community TV station has been left a blackened shell. Then come the torched cafes and shops, followed by seven blocks of burned-out Uzbek homes, a miserable procession interrupted only by the trees that residents cut down in a desperate bid to slow rampaging Kyrgyz mobs.

When residents were asked about what had happened — about why neighbors had turned against each other so suddenly and in such brutal fashion — the simmering anger between the Kyrgyz and the minority Uzbeks quickly surfaced, hinting at the continuing volatility of the situation.

Many Kyrgyz interviewed rejected the government”s allegation that the country”s recently deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, had provoked the clashes in an attempt to return to power in the chaos.

Bakiyev was born here and remains popular among local Kyrgyz. Uzbeks, however, tend to support the interim government that toppled him in a bloody revolt in April.

Some instead blamed a prominent Uzbek leader — Kadyrzhan Batyrov, the head of the university that was burned down and an active supporter of the new government.

Over the past few months, Batyrov has stepped up a campaign demanding greater political rights for ethnic Uzbeks, fanning Kyrgyz fears that he wants to split part of the region into an autonomous Uzbek entity.

Kyrgyz refugees find borders shut as bodies litter streets

OSH: Uzbekistan ordered Monday its frontier closed to an exodus of refugees fleeing deadly violence in Kyrgyzstan where government forces were accused of helping gangs slaughter ethnic Uzbeks.

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.

With estimates of up to 100,000 people already inside Uzbekistan, the 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.

He said Uzbekistan needs international humanitarian aid to cope. “If we have the ability to help them and to treat them of course we will open the border” again, he added.

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 and the UN”s refugee agency said it was sending aid for 75,000.

Ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks have flooded into Uzbekistan in the four days of bloodshed around Osh and Jalalabad which has left at least 138 dead and 1,761 wounded, the health ministry said.

The violence exploded Friday in Osh when ethnic Kyrgyz gangs began attacking the shops and homes of ethnic Uzbeks, igniting tensions between the two dominant groups in the region that have simmered for a generation.

The unrest comes barely two months after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown in a popular uprising. Bakiyev”s stronghold is in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Ethnic Uzbeks said many more had been killed and accused government forces of helping Kyrgyz mobs in their deadly rampage.

100,000 Uzbek Refugees Seek Safety at Border

By Sasha MerkushevSome 100,000 minority Uzbeks fleeing a purge by mobs of Kyrgyz massed at the border Monday, an Uzbek leader said, as the deadliest ethnic violence to hit this Central Asian nation in decades left a major city smoldering.

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100,000 Uzbek Refugees Seek Safety at Border

Ethnic rioting spreads in Kyrgyzstan, with 80 dead

OSH: Ethnic violence is spreading across southern Kyrgyzstan, where at least 80 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded.

Thousands of Uzbeks have fled their homes in Osh, the second-largest city in the Central Asian country that hosts U.S. and Russian military air bases. Much of the city has been burned.

Gunfire rang out Sunday in the city of Jalal-Abad and nearby Bazar-Kurgan village was tense.

Local political activist Asyl Tekebayev said a mob of up to 400 Uzbeks was overturning cars. He said they killed a police captain.

Residents say armed Kyrgyz men from other parts of the region are arriving in the village.

The violence is the worst since Kyrgyzstan”s president was ousted in a bloody revolt in April.

Ethnic clashes rage in Kyrgyzstan, 51 dead

OSH: Police and soldiers struggled Saturday to stop ethnic clashes in this Central Asian country that have killed more than 50 people, as gangs of armed young Kyrgyz men marched on Uzbek neighborhoods and fires raged throughout the city.

The official death toll has climbed to at least 51, while about 700 people have been wounded, the Health Ministry said. The real figures may be higher because doctors and human rights workers said ethnic Uzbeks were afraid to seek hospital treatment.

Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks were fleeing toward the nearby border with Uzbekistan.

The violence that broke out Friday in Osh, the country”s second-largest city, is the worst since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country.

It poses a decisive test of the provisional government”s ability to control the country, where the U.S. and Russia both have military air bases. The government needs stability to hold a June 27 vote on a new constitution and go ahead with elections for a new parliament in October.

The government declared a state of emergency in and around Osh and dispatched armored vehicles, troops and helicopters to pacify the situation. Fighting quieted down overnight but resumed with new strength Saturday. Much of central Osh was on fire, while homes in Uzbek neighborhood also burned.

“Young men in white masks are marauding and stealing from the remaining stores, offices and houses, and then setting them on fire,” said Bakyt Omorkulov, a member of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a non-governmental organization.

The interim government acknowledged that it was struggling to establish control.

“The situation in Osh remains very, very difficult,” Azimbek Beknazarov, an acting prime minister, told journalists in Bishkek, the capital. “We are doing everything we can, but there is no improvement yet.”

Police and residents said groups of young Kyrgyz men were streaming into Osh by road from other parts of the country and marching toward Uzbek neighborhoods. They were armed with metal bars and some had automatic weapons.

Omorkulov said ethnic Uzbeks in the Cheryomushki and Besh-Kuprik neighborhoods called to say their houses were on fire and they were terrified. “They called us and were sobbing into the phone, but what can we do?” Omorkulov said.

From the Osh airport, where hundreds of arriving passengers were stranded, fire from heavy machine guns and automatic weapons was heard as troops tried to gain control of roads into the city.

Convey Attack In Khyber Agency 6 Killed

LANDI KOTAL: In a remote-controlled bomb attack at a security forces convoy in Khyber tribal region killed six persons including two security men and two children.

A convoy of the security forces was attacked with remote-controlled device in tehsil Bara of Khyber region.

The forces initiated search operation in the area after the attack arrested 10 suspects and demolished a house. The region has been already under curfew.

According to ARY News four security men were also injured in the attack on the forces convoy.

Moreover, the militants blew up a bridge in Bajaur region.

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Convey Attack In Khyber Agency 6 Killed was first posted on September 13, 2009 at 2:51 pm.
©2009 “News Trends“.

Uzbek Militant Hide In Waziristan

ISLAMABAD: The Fata Additional Chief Secretary, Habibullah Khan on Saturday informed the Senate Standing Committee on Safron that the Uzbeks strength in North and South Waziristan was not less than 5,000. He said their movement was not restricted to tribal belt, but they also traveled to Balochistan.

He said that some evidences relating to the involvement of U.S., Israel and India in Fata situation were also found.

Replying to a question, Habibullah told that Taliban Commander, Mangal Bagh still continued threatening people in Khayber Agency through his F.M. Radio.

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Uzbek Militant Hide In Waziristan was first posted on September 13, 2009 at 2:53 pm.
©2009 “News Trends“.