United Nations, June 18: The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has said that 300,000 people had been internally displaced due to ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan while an estimated 100,000 had fled to neighbouring Uzbekistan.
Most of the internally displaced people have found shelter with families and host communities but some 40,000 people are in need of shelter, according to UNHCR, which also warns that in the town of Osh and nearby villages appears to be volatile.
The situation is also tense around the town of Jalalabad, where sporadic clashes have been reported.
UN Special Advisers have already warned of the possibility of ethnic cleansing with ethnic Uzbeks being the vulnerable group.
“The pattern and scale of the violence, which has resulted in the mass displacement of Uzbeks from South Kyrgyzstan, could amount to ethnic cleansing,” UN Special Adviser Edward Luck has said.
–PTI