Accessibility links

Breaking News

Dozens Of Families Homeless Months After Kyrgyz Violence


Residents of the village of Shark who lost their homes this summer still live in tents as temperatures drop.
Residents of the village of Shark who lost their homes this summer still live in tents as temperatures drop.
OSH, Kyrgyzstan -- Dozens of families in a southern Kyrgyz village who lost their homes during ethnic violence this summer are still homeless as severe winter weather hit the region, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

The 62 families in the village of Shark, near Osh, lost their homes during deadly clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the Osh and Jalal-Oblast regions in mid-June.

More than 400 people were killed and hundreds were injured in the violence. An estimated 1,870 private homes and municipal buildings were destroyed or damaged during the unrest.

Kyrgyz authorities pledged to provide all local families whose homes were destroyed with new houses by winter.

Kadambai Baktygulov, the deputy chief of the State Directorate for the Restoration of Damaged Regions, told RFE/RL that so far 1,620 new homes had been built in the regions affected by the violence.

He said about 90 percent of the families who lost their homes in June had received new houses. Baktygulov added that those families still living in tents would be given new homes soon.

RFE/RL reports from Shark that many of the new homes built there do not yet have heating.

The Osh region has been experiencing unseasonably cold weather lately and nighttime temperatures often fall below freezing.

Read more in Russian here

Read more in Kyrgyz
here
XS
SM
MD
LG