Uzbekistan: 75,000 Uzbeks flee riots in Kyrgyzstan

[merig00]

Kyrgyz mobs burned Uzbek villages and slaughtered their residents Sunday in the worst ethnic rioting this Central Asian nation has seen in 20 years, sending more than 75,000 Uzbeks fleeing across the border into Uzbekistan.

Most of the Uzbek refugees were elderly people, women and children, and many had gunshot wounds, the Uzbek Emergencies

Comments

[derogatory]

ugh. I guess you could have seen this coming but it doesn't make this any less horrifying.

[homasse]

What was it that set this off? It seems like it just exploded into horrific violence out of nowhere.

[merig00]

Sorry embed doesn't work :( http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2050875n

[kencf0618]

Same here. I've no context whatsoever; Kyrgyz vs. Uzbek might as well be from an old Mission:Impossible! episode. I was aware of Han and Uyghur tension in the PRC, but this scale of communal violence has come totally out of the blue as far as my media scope is concerned. (Former Soviet republics tend to 'splode into the news, don't they?)

[lady_deirdre]

"Whatever you see over there - all the burnt restaurants and cafeterias - were owned by them and we destroyed them on purpose," he told the AP. "Why didn't they want to live in peace?" ... I see this one going on for some time yet.

When the reports came out of Kyrgyzstan a while ago, I kind of feared there would be more to come. Didn't expect anything with this intensity, though. It's got the potential of being the Balkan wars all over again, doesn't it?

[merig00]

Well depending what you mean by Balkan wars. If you are talking about bloody ethnic killings then yes. If you think that European countries or USA will intervene - no.

[lady_deirdre]

Considering how intervening in Srebrenica worked out, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. But yeah, it's unlikely the west will lend a helping hand. On the other hand, I understand that Kyrgyzstan is more focussed on Russia (they asked them for help, after all) so maybe there's going to be action from that side? Not that that's necessarily better.

[merig00]

UN emergency session on this session will start in.... never.

[mellawe]

"Whatever you see over there - all the burnt restaurants and cafeterias - were owned by them and we destroyed them on purpose," he told the AP. "Why didn't they want to live in peace?"

And he's not seeing the irony of his own statement