Aid For Victims of Ethnic Cleansing in Kyrgyzstan

PRESS RELEASE

June 21 2010

TEAR Fund aids victims of ethnic cleansing in Kyrgyzstan

TEAR Fund is responding to the growing humanitarian crisis in Kyrgyzstan by providing medical help and food to displaced Uzbek’s fleeing ethnic violence, which has left more than an estimated 2,000 dead and 250,000 displaced.

Reports from the field are extremely worrying, said TEAR Fund NZ programmes officer Jared Berends, who has spent some time in Uzbekistan. There were definite fears that ethnic cleansing was taking place against Uzbeks, he said. “One of our field workers witnessed atrocities such as seeing an old Uzbek man beaten and burnt to death in the street by a group of Kyrgyz.” They were overheard to say that he was Uzbek and that was the reason they attacked him, said the field worker. Uzbeks who have fled the violence were still reluctant to return to their homes, as many fear they would not be protected by the Kyrgyz military.

TEAR Fund has committed funds to help feed the huge numbers in Internally Displaced Persons camps on the Uzbek border and to provide essential medical supplies to those injured and suffering. Mr Berends said he hoped the world wouldn’t sit back and allow another Kosovo or Rwanda to happen again.

ENDS

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