Several hundred killed in Kyrgyztan violence

Several hundred people have been killed in rioting in Kyrgyzstan, the Red Cross said today, as new reports strengthened suspicions that the violence was deliberately ignited to undermine the Central Asian nation’s interim government.

The southern part of Kyrgyzstan has been convulsed by days of rioting targeting minority Uzbeks, which has left the country’s second-largest city, Osh, in smouldering ruins and sent more than 100,000 Uzbeks fleeing for their lives to neighbouring Uzbekistan.