Rival groups clashed in southern Kyrgyzstan on Friday as the interim government retook official buildings from backers of ousted Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, leaving at least one dead and scores injured.
Shots rang out during street battles in the cities of Osh and Jalalabad, where hundreds of Bakiyev supporters battled factions loyal to the government with sticks and stones, officials and reports said.
The health ministry said one person was killed in Jalalabad and 59 were wounded, 26 of them with gunshot wounds, lowering the number of injured from 63. Unconfirmed reports put the death toll higher.
PHOTO: AFP
A doctor at Jalalabad regional hospital said three people died in the clashes, while a spokeswoman for Bakiyev’s support committee, Dzhanara Moldokulova, said that eight protesters were killed. Government supporters regained control of regional administration headquarters in Jalalabad and Osh after they were seized by supporters of former president Bakiyev on Thursday, government officials said. In Bishkek, government head Roza Otunbayeva said authorities were “taking all measures to peacefully resolve the situation.”
The capital is calm, she added, and the government is “taking measures to restore order in Jalalabad.”
Several Bakiyev allies, including the former head of his office, Usen Sydykov, were detained during the clashes, Otunbayeva said.
Protesters burnt down three houses belonging to Bakiyev and his brothers in a village outside Jalalabad, a spokesman for the interim government, Farid Niyazov, told journalists.”
“The arson attacks were carried out by relatives of people who suffered in the people’s uprising in Bishkek on April,” Niyanzov said, adding that no one was injured.
The US embassy in Bishkek, in a statement, expressed concern about the violence, urging “the peaceful resolution to the problems that have caused this situation,” it said.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Friday sent his special representative, Vladimir Rushailo, to Bishkek, where he held talks with Otunbayeva.
“Russia has come to help us,” Otunbayeva told journalists after the talks. “President Dmitry Medvedev said clearly: They will support Kyrgyzstan politically and materially at this hour.”
“Our aim is to help Kyrgyzstan in all aspects of its activities,” Rushailo told journalists.
In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton voiced “serious concern” and urged the rival camps “to do everything to calm the situation and not to escalate it further by organizing shows of force.”
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS