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Unknown Explosive Device Kills Two Childen In Kyrgyzstan's South


The children, aged between 4 and 10, were playing with a device they found when it detonated.
The children, aged between 4 and 10, were playing with a device they found when it detonated.
Two children have been killed in a blast in Kyrgyzstan's southern province of Batken.

Four other children were hospitalized with injuries.

The children -- between 4 and 10 years of age -- were playing with an unknown explosive device they had found near the village of Zardaly when it detonated on April 17.

Zardaly was captured by fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) during clashes with Kyrgyz security forces in 1999.

The IMU fighters entered Kyrgyz territory from bases in Tajikistan's remote mountains at that time and returned in the summer of 2000.

Investigators say the device that exploded may have been a grenade that remained from those clashes.

Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev expressed his condolences to the parents of the dead children and ordered that financial assistance be provided to the families of those killed and injured.

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