3 planes being sent to Kyrgyzstan to evacuate stranded students
World
3 planes being sent to Kyrgyzstan to evacuate stranded students
Leaders of the Uzbek and Kyrgyz community Monday gathered in Osh to end the ethnic violence erupted some days back in Kyrgyzstan through talks. So far, as many as 117 people including a Pakistani have been killed, while 1,500 got injured in the ongoing riots. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has announced to send three C130 aircrafts to Kyrgyzstan to bring back the stranded Pakistanis. Sporadic gunfire continued through the night and fresh fires raged in southern Kyrgyzstan, as the Central Asian nation's worst ethnic violence in decades that prompted thousands to flee showed no signs of abating. Mobs of rioters slaughtered ethnic minority Uzbeks and burned their homes and businesses. More than 75,000 Uzbeks fled the country amid attacks that also appeared aimed at undermining the new interim government. Meanwhile, Russia sent a battalion of paratroopers to safeguard its facilities in the country and the Kyrgyz government ordered the army to shoot to kill in an effort to end rioting.Moscow's action followed a refusal by Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, on Saturday to send a larger peacekeeping force to the country, although the Kremlin is understood to be examining the option. The fear that Kyrgyzstan could follow nearby Afghanistan into bloody chaos and lawlessness has gripped the central Asian region, where Russia, China and the US have interests. The ethnically mixed south of Kyrgyzstan, with an Uzbek minority and Kyrgyz majority, has been the flashpoint for unrest in the nation following a coup d'etat in April that toppled Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the president. Russia's Security Council will meet today to consider its options. An aircraft loaded with humanitarian aid was dispatched from Russia at the weekend. Violence spread from Osh to Jalalabad, the second largest city in the south, on Saturday, prompting the interim government to declare a state of emergency throughout the region. Local media reported that armed groups set fire to a hospital, bank and an Uzbek-funded university in Jalalabad yesterday after a night of gun battles in the city.
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