Kyrgyzstan’s weak military was trying to regain control of the city of Osh, a major transit point for Afghan heroin and the epicentre of ethnic violence that has driven much of the Uzbek population from the country’s poor, rural south.

RIOTING has killed several hundred people in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, the Red Cross said yesterday, as new reports strengthened suspicions that the violence was deliberately ignited to undermine the interim government.

Germany has evacuated 89 westerners, including 31 Americans and 40 Europeans, from the violence-torn city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan.

UZBEKISTAN yesterday ordered its frontier closed to a mass exodus of refugees fleeing clashes between rival groups in Kyrgyzstan where government forces were accused of helping the slaughter of ethnic Uzbeks.

Mobs of rioters slaughtered Uzbeks and burned their homes and businesses in Kyrgyzstan’s worst ethnic violence in decades, sending more than 75,000 members of the ethnic minority fleeing the country.

KYRGYZ mobs burned Uzbek villages, slaughtered their residents and looted police stations yesterday in the worst ethnic rioting this Central Asian nation has seen in 20 years, sending more than 75,000 Uzbek refugees fleeing across the border into Uzbekistan.

Russia has refused to send in troops as ethnic riots racked southern Kyrgyzstan, forcing thousands of Uzbeks to flee as their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men.

Armed mobs torched entire districts in southern Kyrgyzstan today during ethnic clashes that left around 40 dead and over 500 wounded.

The head of Kyrgyzstan’s interim government said today talks with the its deposed president were possible, but prospects for a compromise were clouded by mutual distrust and threats to use force.

KYRGYZSTAN’S ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev made his first public appearance yesterday since being toppled in a popular uprising, slamming his opponents and refusing to step down.

Thousands of grieving, angry mourners flooded the main square in the capital of Kyrgyzstan today to honour victims of the country‘s revolt – with many blaming the absent president for ordering security forces to fire on those protesting against his government.

Opposition leaders moved to consolidate their control over Kyrgyzstan after their victory in a bloody uprising, saying they would hold power for six months and assuring the US it can keep a strategic air base here – at least for now.

THE president of Kyrgyzstan declared from hiding last night that he would not surrender to a violent uprising that put the opposition in control of much of the country, home to a US air base key to the war in nearby Afghanistan.

An opposition coalition in Kyrgyzstan said it formed an interim government that will rule the turbulent Central Asian nation for six months.

PARLIAMENTARY elections have passed off peacefully in Kyrgyzstan despite opposition claims of vote rigging, electoral fraud and media manipulation in the Central Asian state.