AID REACHES KYRGYZSTAN
FrontLines - July 2010
By Ben Barber
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Doctors tend to sick and wounded ethnic Uzbeks at the Kyrgyz-
Uzbek border in Suratash June 14. Uzbekistan closed its frontiers
to tens of thousands of refugees fleeing clashes between rival
groups in Kyrgyzstan.
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In the wake of violence that
broke out last month in Kyrgyzstan,
leaving at least 275 dead
and displacing an estimated
375,000 people from their
homes—mostly minority Uzbek
citizens—USAID has committed
$25 million in medical supplies,
shelter materials, water,
sanitation, and other emergency
relief supplies and assistance.
As of June 28, USAID staff
in Bishkek reported that the situation
in southern Kyrgyzstan
continued to shift from emergency
and humanitarian needs
to recovery, reconciliation, and
reconstruction needs.
| “People are still deeply traumatized
by the violence of earlier this month.” |
U.N. refugee spokesman
Adrian Edwards said “the crisis
is not over” in a June 29 report
by Voice of America. Some
375,000 people were “still in
need of humanitarian support,”
said Edwards.
He noted that in Osh, aid
workers have seen significant
destruction in some areas,
with nearly all the houses set
on fire.
“People are still deeply traumatized
by the violence of earlier
this month,” Edwards said.
“In these neighborhoods,
we are still seeing many people
sleeping in the open,
often within completely
destroyed homes and yards…
there are no services, as you
have heard, such as water and
electricity. In many parts of
the city, people report being
deprived of health services.
Many have lost identity documents
either through looting or
in fires.”
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Kyrgyz refugees sit in their tent at sunset on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border near Dostukh June 19.
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The U.N. World Food Program
(WFP) was distributing a
one-month ration of high energy
biscuits to the roughly 75,000
ethnic Uzbeks who had fled to
neighboring Uzbekistan following
the outbreak of violence and
have subsequently returned to
Kyrgyzstan.
WFP has provided food assistance
to approximately 240,000
individuals since the outbreak of
violence.
USAID assistance includes
some $15 million from the Complex
Crises Fund (CCF) to
directly respond to the evolving
situation in Kyrgyzstan. USAID
is using the CCF—a new mechanism
that enables the administrator
of USAID, in consultation
with the secretary of state, to
respond to emerging or unforeseen
crises—to support rapid
community improvement and
stabilization activities.
USAID assistance is being
delivered by U.N. agencies as
well as NGOs, including the
International Resource Group,
the Save the Children Federation,
and the Agency for Cooperation
and Technical Development.
The fragile interim government
of Kyrgyzstan appealed to
Russian peacekeeping troops to
end the rioting but Moscow,
which maintains an air base in
the country, rejected the appeal.
European countries also
refused to intervene.
It remained unclear what
ignited the riots in which
mobs and possibly military
or police forces composed
almost entirely of ethnic Kyrgyz
attacked the minority
Uzbeks who have lived in the
country for generations.
★
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Ethnic Uzbeks wait in line for food in a refugee camp outside Begabad June 15.
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Kyrgyz refugees play football in a refugee camp outside Osh
June 24.
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