400,000 displaced by ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan

ETHNIC violence in southern Kyrgyzstan has displaced 400,000 people, the UN said yesterday, dramatically increasing the official estimate of a crisis that has left throngs of desperate, fearful refugees without enough food and water in grim camps along the Uzbek border.

Ethnic Uzbeks in the city of Osh said ethnic Kyrgyz men had sexually assaulted and beaten more than 10 Uzbek women and girls on a single street during the rampages that erupted last week.

Resident Matlyuba Akramova showed journalists a 16-year-old relative who, she said, had been hiding in the attic as Kyrgyz mobs beat her father. The girl came downstairs to bandage her father’s head and another group sexually assaulted her in front of her father.