Death toll rises to 49 in Osh - Health Ministry.

12/6 Tass 60


BISHKEK, June 12 (Itar-Tass) -- The death toll in Osh disturbances has
reached 49, a source at the Kyrgyz Health Ministry told Itar-Tass on
Saturday.
A total of 654 addressed for medical aid, 423 of them were
hospitalised.
"Over half of those taken to hospitals are in poor condition," the
source said.
Doctors, including surgeons and neurosurgeons, and medicines were sent
over to Osh from the capital of the republic, Bishkek.
Clashes between ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz residents broke out overnight
June 10-11. Over the conflict, the participants in the disorders put on
fire dozens of shops, cafes, a bank, two theatres, a TV company, cars,
including police ones, hostels and apartment buildings. The interim
government announced emergency. The curfew will be effective from 18:00 to
06:00. Additional military and armoured vehicles were brought into the
city. The military are allowed to use arms in case civilians' life is
threatened. Eyewitnesses said those measures had succeeded only partially.
"The situation in the city remains complicated," a source at the
republic's Interior Ministry said on Saturday commenting on the situation
over the previous night.
Kyrgyzstan's Health Ministry reports victims in Bishkek disorders. On
Friday, several hundred gathered by the parliament building where the
interim government sits, and demanded to be given transport to go to Osh.
As the demand was declined, they stopped cars and minibuses and
confiscated them. Only police and voluntary police stopped the crowd.
Over 1,500 voluntary police helped the law enforcement forces to guard
Bishkek. 27 were wounded over the disorders in the capital.

-0-kar/kud