ARTICLES
The Chaos in Central Asia
06-15-2010The bloody ethnic clashes occurring in southern Kyrgyzstan are the worst violence in the Fergana Valley, the heart of Central Asia, since 1990, when hundreds died in another outpouring of mutual hatred. The tragedy is that the current conflict, which risks turning the country into a failed state and tipping the entire region into chaos, could have been avoided.
The latest outburst started with a bar fight between young male Uzbeks and Kyrgyzs in Osh, a city in South Kyrgyzstan, last Thursday. It has since escalated into a series of ethnic pogroms, lootings and burnings. Currently 120 people have been reported killed, with some 1,500 wounded and more than 75,000 refugees—primarily Uzbek women and children—fleeing into Uzbekistan. The Red Cross says that when the dust settles, the dead may number more than 700, once the people now buried in mass graves are counted. Uzbekistan reportedly closed its border to the refugees, and a humanitarian disaster is looming.
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