Gunfire continues in Uzbek city

Sporadic shooting continued on Monday in an eastern Uzbek city where an uprising sparked a crackdown by security forces that left up to 500 ...

Sporadic shooting continued on Monday in an eastern Uzbek city where an uprising sparked a crackdown by security forces that left up to 500 people dead, and a human rights group reported that clashes in another town killed an additional 200.

The spreading unrest in a region bordering Kyrgyzstan—the worst since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991—also left 11 people dead in clashes on Sunday in a third town, and sparked a rampage by residents in a fourth town on Saturday, witnesses said.

The government of President Islam Karimov has denied opening fire on demonstrators as witnesses have claimed, but the authoritarian government has sought to restrict access for reporters in the affected areas.

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If the reports of more than 700 deaths since Friday hold true and if Uzbek forces were behind the killing—as most reports indicate—the crackdown would be among the most violent in Asia since the massacre of protesters in China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Jahon Zaynabitdinov, head of the local Appeal Human Rights advocacy group, said on Monday that government troops had killed about 200 demonstrators on Saturday in Pakhtabad, about 30 kilometers northeast of Andijan. —PTI

Meanwhile, Uzbek troops seal town

MOSCOW: Uzbek troops sealed off the center of the city of Andijon on Sunday as President Islam Karimov’s government sought to suppress information about a bloody crackdown there last week on thousands of protesters and militants.

More detailed reports of Friday’s carnage continued to emerge even though authorities were trying to keep journalists away. Human-rights activists, a doctor and others in Andijon placed the death toll at 500. A crossing into Kyrgyzstan at the Uzbekistan town of Korasuv was reopened Sunday, but elsewhere along the border there were clashes as people fled Andijon. —LAT-WP