Behind the violence in Kyrgyzstan
At the time of writing, the official death toll from the ethnic violence which broke out in the Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad in the night of 11/12 June stands at over 200. With so many corpses still to be recovered, the real figure is doubtless a lot higher, and possibly as high as 2,000. Some 400,000 Uzbeks, the ethnic minority which has been the target of the violence, have fled from their homes. Around 300,000 are internally displaced within Kyrgyzstan, and the other 100,000 have fled across the border into Uzbekistan. There are contradictory reports about the immediate ‘trigger’ for...