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In Uzbekistan, Families Caught In a Nightmare
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem May 18, 2005 12:03pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Washington Post |
| News Date | Wednesday, May 18, 2005 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Refugees Tell of Flight From Government Troops
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A01
KARA-SUU, Uzbekistan, May 17 -- The Uzbek troops were shooting again, this time from rooftops, and Zukra Karimova's 58-year-old father fell to the ground as he ran, a dark bloodstain spreading along his thigh. "Go on without me or you'll be killed, too!" he shouted as she bent down to help him, she recalled.
Karimova made a quick decision to obey -- and went racing on, with her husband, mother and 12-year-old son.
It was early Saturday morning, and the family was fleeing a brutal crackdown that had begun in the central square of their home city of Andijon, where troops opened fire on thousands of people who had gathered to protest the authoritarian government of their Central Asian country.
Karimova made it across the border to Kyrgyzstan, but she has no idea whether her father did -- or her son, who became separated from her in the confusion. On Tuesday, she sat with about 500 other refugees in a tent camp set up near the Kyrgyz city of Suzak, burying her face in her hands as she contemplated the bloodletting that the Uzbek government says claimed 169 lives -- 32 troops and the rest "terrorists." Human rights activists have put the death toll as high as 750, most of them civilians. The U.S. government estimates that 300 people were killed. |
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