The stories from this small country of barely more than 5 million people are horrible. The Independent:
As many as 400,000 people have been displaced by ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, the United Nations announced yesterday, dramatically increasing the official estimate of the impact of a crisis that has left refugees without enough food and water in camps on the Uzbekistani border.
Meanwhile, Uzbeks in the southern city of Osh claimed Kyrgyz men had sexually assaulted and beaten more than 10 Uzbek females – including pregnant women and girls as young as 12 – on a single street during the unrest.
In the Cheryomushki district, Matlyuba Akramova, a resident, showed journalists a 16-year-old relative who had been hiding in the attic of the family home while a Kyrgyz mob beat her father downstairs. At some point, Mr Akramova said, the girl tried to help her father and was sexually assaulted in front of him. However, Kyrgyz have denied accusations of such brutality and say Uzbeks have raped Kyrgyz women.
While many Kyrgyz were killed in the unrest, the majority of victims appear to have been Uzbeks – farmers and traders who have traditionally been more prosperous than the Kyrgyz, whose background is nomadic.
