WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

Between June 10 and 14, 2010, unknown assailants triggered large-scale violence between the  majority Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks ethnic groups in southern Kyrgyzstan -- including in the country’s second largest city, Osh and in nearby urban areas. When Refugees International visited Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in the aftermath of this violence, we heard numerous accounts of unprovoked killings, shootings, stabbings, looting and especially burning.  

In Bazarkorgon, forty-three year old Mansour* told us his story.  A father of five girls, Mansour sent his daughters to stay with relatives in the nearby mountains shortly after the violence erupted.  He expected to be able to call them home in a day or two.  As the problems became more severe, he said, “It became too dangerous to stay in the country.  I sent them to Uzbekistan.”  Pointing in the direction of the border area he recalls, “They stayed there for 11 days while I stayed here to protect our house.”  

Despite his best intentions, Mansour’s house did not escape the morbid destruction that roared through his community.  Standing in the ashen remains of a sizable multi-family residence, known as a mahala he asked for help to rebuild his home.  “I have no money to put up another house,” he explained.  “I worked as a driver before and earned wages.  Now the city has pretty much shut down.  Besides I don’t have a vehicle. And most people are too afraid to go anywhere anyway.”

Mansour’s daughters came back to Kyrgyzstan on June 25 in order to vote in the national referendum.  There is relative calm in the country, and his family have returned from Uzbekistan. But Mansour still spends the night with relatives because it’s impossible to stay in his own burnt-out house.  “I come here during the day when the organizations come through,” he reports. “But there is no one else here with me.”  Meanwhile, his daughters move from one relative’s house to another depending on who has space for them.

Mansour says his biggest concern now is reconstruction. “We get some food from the government and the international organizations provide additional provisions and things like toiletries,” he told us. However he is still waiting for him and his family to have a stable place to stay. “Everyone is writing this down but no one is DOING anything to help us to rebuild our homes and our lives.”