Health, rights groups say ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan being denied medical treatment, refuge

Ethnic Uzbeks deprived health treatment and refuge

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — International health and rights groups said Wednesday that minority ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan are being deprived of medical treatment and opportunities to seek refuge in neighboring Uzbekistan.

An uneasy peace has descended on Kyrgyzstan since June clashes between ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz communities left hundreds dead in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing. But activists say Uzbeks, who suffered the worst of the violence, are now being persecuted by police and security forces.

Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said armed security forces posted near hospitals are deterring many from seeking much-needed medical and psychological assistance.

“The normal population, all the Uzbeks who see daily violence here from the military and the police, are scared, they are too scared to go inside the hospitals,” said Anja Wolz, the group’s coordinator in Osh.

Wolz said medical workers in hospitals have not threatened patients or turned them away, but that ethnic Uzbeks are routinely intimidated and threatened by other members of staff.

Medecins Sans Frontieres said that over the past four weeks it has provided care to 51 patients who had suffered severe beatings. Five of the patients claimed that they had been tortured, the group said.

“As MSF operates only in a limited area of Kyrgyzstan, these figures are a strong indication of the level of violence still taking place, and are also unusually high according to MSF’s experience,” the group said in a statement.

In addition to treating patients with chronic health ailments, international aid organizations are also providing psychological assistance for hundreds of people affected by last month’s violence.

The United Nations and other organizations have received reports of torture and other atrocities by Kyrgyzstan’s forces against ethnic Uzbeks. Kyrgyz authorities say a number of criminal investigations have been launched into rights violations by police and military forces, although with little apparent effect.

The fertile Ferghana Valley where Osh is located was arbitrarily split between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, a situation that has fomented ethnic animosities for decades.

Human Rights Watch has called on Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to reopen their borders to allow persecuted ethnic Uzbeks to seek a safe haven.

HRW researcher Gerry Simpson said dozens of families seeking to flee to Uzbekistan have been stopped from leaving by Kyrgyzstan border troops.

While some ethnic Uzbeks are seeking ways of getting to Russia or other parts of the country, many have been forced to hide within their own city and prepare for a possible resurgence in ethnic violence.

“People are putting their wives and their children in hiding with relatives and friends … who live very close to the border, so if there is a problem they can just jump across the border,” Simpson told The Associated Press by telephone from Osh.

Around 100,000 ethnic Uzbeks fled to Uzbekistan in the days after the ethnic violence broke out on June 10. Almost all of them returned to Kyrgyzstan over the following two weeks, however, amid what rights activists say was pressure from the authorities of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.