OSH, Kyrgyzstan, June 12 (Reuters) Kyrgyzstan's worst outbreak of violence since the president was overthrown in April raged for a second day on Saturday and officials said the death toll in the ethnic conflict had risen to at least 49.
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Men walk past a burning building in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan June 11. REUTERS |
“Entire streets are on fire,” Interior Ministry spokesman Rakhmatillo Akhmedov said of the violence in the southern city of Osh. “The situation is very bad. There is no sign of it stopping.
Homes have been set ablaze,” he said The interim government in Kyrgyzstan, which hosts U.S. and
Russian military bases, declared a state of emergency in Osh and several local rural districts on Friday after hundreds of youths fought with guns and steel bars.
A Reuters correspondent in Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second-largest city, said gun battles had taken place through the night in an Uzbek neighbourhood of the city.
A spokeswoman for the Kyrgyz Health Ministry said at least 49 people had been killed and 654 wounded in the violence in the southern power base of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, deposed in April by a popular revolt.
The interim government, led by Roza Otunbayeva, has sent troops and armoured vehicles to quell the violence. |
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