IRC launches relief effort in Kyrgyzstan but more international aid is needed
23 June 2010
International Rescue Committee emergency experts deployed to southern Kyrgyzstan say thousands of people driven from their homes by recent ethnic violence are in dire need of assistance.
The IRC's Emergency Response Team is in Osh and surrounding areas, looking at ways to provide assistance in the areas of emergency shelter, water, sanitation and protection for especially vulnerable groups. The IRC is also supporting a partner on the ground by funding deliveries of food, hygiene items and medical supplies.
The IRC team completed a needs assessment in two predominantly Uzbek districts of Osh and say the damage there is devastating and dramatic.
"In the neighbourhood of Furkat, all that's left is the skeletal remains of charred and looted houses and other buildings," says Catherine Jones, emergency protection coordinator with the IRC. "As many as 500 families used to live there, but there's no trace of them now, nothing worth salvaging and nothing to return to."
A visit to Cheremushki revealed the targeted nature of the violence. Jones says houses owned by ethnic Russians and Tartars in this neighbourhood were untouched, while mostly ethnic Uzbek homes were razed. A Kyrgyz grocery store was left intact, while all other nearby shops were destroyed.
A Russian man, nervously living in one of only two houses still standing on a street that he said used to be beautiful and lined with trees, told Jones, "The attackers came down the road like a sea. They looted select houses, loaded what they stole onto trucks and then set the homes on fire."
Most displaced families fled toward the Uzbek border in the midst of the chaos carrying no belongings or supplies and found refuge in ethnic-Uzbek villages that have little means to support them.
"Everyone we talked to in the Uzbek community asked for food and shelter as well as a neutral security force to restore stability and investigate what happened," says Ton Hujizer, head of the IRC's emergency response team in Kyrgyzstan.
Huijzer expressed deep concern about a worsening humanitarian crisis. "We hope the international community will step up with greater levels of assistance and that the Kyrgyz government will create conditions to allow for the rapid delivery of aid and the safe return of the displaced."
Jones says the long-term needs are also vast. "Whole neighbourhoods are beyond repair," she says. "These communities are going to require significant help to rebuild homes and restore livelihoods, if and when they feel it’s safe enough to return. At the moment, there is incredible fear and mistrust."
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Media contacts
Sam Duerden (London)
+44 20 7692 0408 / +44 7505 752990
sam.duerden@IRCuk.org
Melissa Winkler (New York)
+1 212-551-0972/ +1 646 734 0305
melissa.winkler@theIRC.org
Catherine Jones (Osh, Kyrgyzstan)
+996 559 11 8867 / +996 551 22 8817
catherine.jones@theIRC.org
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