Wrapping up visit to Kyrgyzstan, UN official calls for reconciliation

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has appealed for continued calm in the wake of deadly ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan to allow for reconciliation efforts to gain traction.

According to UN agencies, nearly all of the 75,000 ethnic Uzbeks who fled across the border to Uzbekistan after violence erupted in the Kyrgyz towns of Osh and Jalalabad earlier last month have returned. Many are sheltering in camps or staying with host families since their homes have been destroyed.

Before wrapping up his two-day visit to the area yesterday, High Commissioner António Guterres met with refugees in Jalalabad who have found their homes burnt out and are sheltering in tents provided by the UN refugee agency, known as UNHCR. Although they have begun to clear the rubble, they expressed their fears to Mr. Guterres of the coming winter.

Many of those affected by the recent violence also appealed to the UN refugee chief for better security, telling him they feel unsafe. Others told him of their concerns over having lost personal documents and the potential difficulties in replacing them.

He also stopped at parts of the city inhabited by ethnic Kyrgyz victims of the clashes, some of whom had their businesses burned down.

The clashes, the latest unrest to hit the country following the violent uprising in April that ousted former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, displaced at least 300,000 people within Kyrgyzstan.

“Everybody said ‘we want peace,’” Mr. Guterres told reporters yesterday in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. “Nobody said, ‘we want revenge,’ including those people whose family members were killed.”

He pledged UNHCR’s support to Kyrgyzstan in providing effective humanitarian aid distributed without discrimination, as well as for protection as the reconstruction process gets under way.

Before leaving the Central Asian nation, he met again with President Rosa Otunbayeva, noting that he was encouraged by her strong commitment to reconciliation.

“Many people are living in tents near their destroyed houses waiting for a solution to their plight,” Mr. Guterres told journalists.

“It is the moment for a massive mobilization of solidarity for this population, both in terms of humanitarian aid and to help the country with governance and economic development to help create the conditions for national reconciliation.”