UZBEKISTAN: Fresh fighting erupted in Uzbekistan yesterday three days after government forces massacred several hundred unarmed demonstrators, with three towns reportedly staging uprisings.
Reports reaching Moscow said Uzbek rebels aided by local people have seized control of parts of those towns, proclaiming them "liberated areas". There is no independent confirmation.
Meanwhile, estimates of the death toll from the violence continue to grow, with an estimated 700 killed both in the Andijan massacre in the east of the country and in fighting in neighbouring areas. This is the worst bloodshed seen in the country since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
More than 10,000 refugees have reportedly fled the region, in Uzbekistan's hilly north-eastern corner, for improved camps inside neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.
From there, gunfire can be heard from the three border towns where fighting has erupted - Korasuv, Pakhtabad and Teshiktosh. More than 200 demonstrators are reportedly dead after being fired at by troops in Pakhtabad on Sunday, according to a human rights group based in the town, but there is no independent confirmation.
Eight soldiers and three civilians are reported dead in Teshiktosh. Pictures have been smuggled out showing lines of bodies of the Andijan protesters, some covered in blankets, in official buildings in the town.
Human rights officials in Andijan report that government troops are now in control, but that sniper fire can be heard at night.
Adding to the confusion are reports that armed Uzbek rebels have been crossing in and out of the country into Kyrgyzstan, apparently to outflank government forces chasing them.
Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov said yesterday that he never gave an order for troops to open fire on demonstrators in Andijan.
He said 10 policemen were killed in clashes with "criminals" and that "on the criminal side, many many more were killed and hundreds wounded".
The spreading of this uprising will remind many of the overthrow of the Kyrgyz government three months ago.
Rebels there staged uprisings in a chain of towns across the south of the country following disputed elections, and within days the opposition staged a bloodless coup.
But Uzbekistan's fighting indicates the government is taking a much tougher line. President Karimov has rushed extra troops to this impoverished region, and the main road from Andijan to the border was blocked.
Troops and police inside Andijan are still searching for more than 2,000 inmates of the city jail set free last Thursday by rebels at the start of the protest.
Uzbekistan has been hit by violence during the past year, with a series of bomb blasts in the capital Tashkent being blamed by the government on Islamic terrorists.
Meanwhile, international aid officials are struggling to get supplies of food, medicine and tents to the Kyrgyz border.
They are hampered both by the isolation of this landlocked country and by the lukewarm reaction to the bloodshed and appeals for help from both the United States and Russia.
A Red Cross camp has now been set up in Kyrgyzstan, but supplies are limited, and the government of this impoverished country will struggle to cope if the influx of refugees continues.