UN agencies said on Tuesday they feared an escalation in fighting in Kyrgyzstan, warning of an “ethnic tinderbox” in the region after an estimated 275,000 people fled their homes in less than a week.
UN relief agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross stepped up deliveries of medical aid, food and shelter to Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring Uzbekistan as supplies in some areas were running low.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it would begin airlifting some 240 tonnes of shelter equipment to Uzbekistan on Wednesday from a warehouse in Dubai. “We are alarmed by the rapid escalation of violence since 10 June in southern Kyrgyzstan, which has left scores of people dead and led to the displacement of an estimated 200,000 people within the country in addition to 75,000 who have sought safety in Uzbekistan,” said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic.
Kyrgyzstan’s interim leader Roza Otunbayeva said that the inter-ethnic clashes that claimed 170 lives were already “on the wane”. Aid workers reported ongoing tensions and sporadic fighting in the Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalalabad.