Several die as political riots engulf Kyrgyzstan

Up to 10 people are feared dead after 10,000 pro-democracy protesters stormed a police station and forced workers to flee a governor’s office in Kyrgyzstan yesterday.

The deaths follow a weeklong stand-off between authorities and opposition supporters angered by the results of parliamentary elections on March 13.

“So far we do not know the precise number of those killed or who they are. But we could be talking about 10 people,” a police spokes- man in the city of Jalal Abad told Russian newsagency Interfax.

The main police station in Jalal Abad was destroyed late yesterday evening after 10,000 protesters stormed the compound. Up to 14 police men and protesters were injured, and police officers were forced to escape to the roof firing shots into the air.

Demonstrators threw petrol bombs setting the building alight, said regional government spokesman Orazaly Karasartov.

Earlier, over a dozen protesters were injured and two truck-loads arrested after Interior Ministry commandos stormed an occupied government building in Osh, the southern capital of Kyrgyzstan, bordering Uzbekistan.

The raid yesterday morning followed a two-day mass protest where demonstrators elected opposition candidate Anvar Artykov, ‘people’s governor’ following the second round of disputed parliamentary elections on March 13. Thousands attended an open-air rally on Saturday where key opposition leaders, Roza Otunbaeva and Kurmanbek Bakiev, a former prime minister, joined the crowd in demanding the resignation of President Askar Akayev. Mr Bakiev has called on the government to now open high-level negotiations with defeated opposition candidates to restore peace.

The injured, mostly women, and Mr Artykov, have since been placed in police custody. The government building was badly damaged in the raid and subsequent blaze which gutted the interior.

According to a police press conference in the capital city Bishkek, the people’s power bodies had formed volunteer militia and cavalry units.

Protests continued to spread across the Central Asian state over the weekend, with Bishkek, near the Kazakh border, seeing the largest demonstrations in the capital since the first parliamentary poll in February.