Kyrgyzstan says refugees flocking back from Uzbekistan

VLKSM, Kyrgyzstan – Authorities in Kyrgyzstan said Wednesday that more than half of those who fled to neighbouring Uzbekistan during ethnic clashes had returned in a mass influx across the border.

At the border village of VLKSM near the ravaged southern city of Osh, returning refugees, mostly women and children, said they felt it was now safe enough to go home.

"The total number of Kyrgyz citizens who have returned has reached 46,124," the deputy head of the country’s border service, Cholponbek Turusbekov, told journalists in Bishkek.

He said more than 10,000 had returned in the previous 24 hours alone.

"The situation at the border on the morning of June 23 was stable and calm, no incidents were reported," he said.

The Kyrgyz border service has said 75,000 Kyrgyz citizens fled to Uzbekistan during this month’s violence but international aid groups have put the number at more than 100,000.

Another 300,000 people were forced from their homes within the country, aid agencies have said.

Large-scale unrest has ceased in the country’s south, where officials say up to 2,000 people may have been killed during the ethnic clashes between the majority Kyrgyz and minority Uzbek populations earlier this month.

Refugees crossing over from Uzbekistan said they were keen to return home.

"We were born and grew up here. This is where our ancestors lived," Minura, a 43-year-old mother of five from Osh, said after returning from Uzbekistan with two of her children.

"We fled because we feared for our safety. Our relatives told us the situation in Osh is not that dangerous and that many had already returned," she said in VLKSM, a village named for a Russian-language acronym for the Soviet Communist youth league.

Tensions nonetheless remained high as the country’s interim government, which came to power when president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in riots in April, pushed forward with plans for a constitutional referendum on Sunday.

Kyrgyzstan’s interim leader Roza Otunbayeva was greeted by hundreds of protesters demanding immediate elections as she met with local officials in the southern town of Nookat on Tuesday to discuss the vote.

Otunbayeva has insisted the vote on a new constitution is essential to ensuring stability in the Central Asian country.

But some fear the referendum could instead trigger new unrest.

The clashes were the worst ethnic violence to hit the impoverished country since it gained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago.

Victims of the unrest have told AFP that the violence was a brutal and orchestrated campaign by armed Kyrgyz militias targeting Uzbeks, who make up about 14 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s population of 5.3 million.

The health ministry said Tuesday that the official number of dead from the ethnic violence had risen to 251, but Otunbayeva has said that the death toll is probably closer to 2,000.

Aid agencies have said up to a million people may have been affected by the violence. The UN has stepped up relief work in the region in recent days but says continued tensions are hindering efforts to deliver food, shelter and other aid.