REFUGEES who fled a crackdown by Uzbek troops said yesterday they dared not return home, and the UN turned up the volume on its demands for an inquiry into deaths believed to have run into hundreds.

A REBEL leader deepened the crisis in eastern Uzbekistan by announcing an Islamic uprising in his border town.

Uzbek officials took foreign diplomats and journalists on a lightning-quick tour of Andijan today, showing them a prison and the local administration building and arranging meetings with local officials, as the top UN human rights official called for an independent investigation.

UZBEKISTAN’S top prosecutor said yesterday that 169 people had been killed in violence in the eastern town of Andijan, including more than 50 foreign fighters.

Flowers dotted the streets and freshly-dug graves scarred the earth across the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan as residents mourned what witnesses said were hundreds killed by security forces last week – the worst unrest since the former Soviet republic won independence in 1991.

TRAUMATISED refugees last night slammed the Bush administration for legitimating Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

Gunfire persisted today in the eastern city where Uzbek security forces fired on protesters last week – a clash that reportedly left several hundred dead - and new reports emerged that violence in nearby towns killed hundreds more, further threatening the stability of the government.

Sporadic shooting continued today in an eastern Uzbek city where an uprising sparked a crackdown by security forces that left up to 500 people dead, and a human rights group reported that clashes in another town killed an additional 200 people.

FAMILIES of the hundreds of people killed when Uzbek troops opened fire to quell protests in Andizhan buried their dead yesterday as witnesses told of bloody mayhem in which women and children were gunned down.

THE violence that has ripped through Andijan city in Uzbekistan is only the latest chapter in the troubled history of the former Soviet republic.

About 500 bodies have been laid out in rows at a school in the eastern Uzbek city where troops fired on protesters to put down an uprising, a doctor in the town said today, corroborating witness accounts of hundreds killed in the fighting.

Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov claimed today that authorities had tried to negotiate a peaceful end to street protests, but that troops were forced to fire into demonstrators to put down an uprising.

Soldiers opened fire on thousands of protesters in eastern Uzbekistan today after demonstrators stormed a jail to free 23 men accused of Islamic extremism, while a protest leader said about 50 people may have been killed hours earlier in clashes with police and security forces.

Outrage over the terror trial of 23 Muslims exploded into broader unrest in eastern Uzbekistan today when armed protesters stormed a jail to free the defendants and thousands of people swarmed the streets, clashing with police.

At least 21 people, including two suicide bombers, were killed in confrontations between terrorists and police near the Uzbekistan president’s home in Tashkent today.

ISLAMIC extremists were blamed yesterday for suicide bombings, attacks on police and an explosion at an alleged terrorist bomb-making factory in Uzbekistan that killed 19 people including the bombers and injured 26.