UZBEKISTAN: Relatives of up to 500 people slain in Friday's massacre in the Uzbek town of Andijan were yesterday scouring the town for the bodies of their loved ones.
Survivors reaching the border of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan told of seeing troops machine-gunning women, children and their own police comrades.
Meanwhile, Russian television last night reported fighting in a second town, Korasuv, which straddles the Uzbek border with Kyrgyzstan.
Adding to the misery of Andijan residents was the refusal of the authorities to hand over bodies of the dead, or even to release a list of the dead.
Throughout the weekend, desperate relatives have been criss-crossing the town, checking on hospitals and calling at police stations searching for news.
Thousands of Uzbeks fled across improvised bridges to safety in Kyrgyzstan, telling their stories to relief workers.
Reports in Russia spoke of refugees battling with government forces in Korasuv, and of 5,000 protesters looting, burning government buildings and smashing police cars.
Security forces abandoned the town and local residents rebuilt a frail metal bridge that the authorities had pulled down and which had formerly linked them to Uzbekistan.
Andijan remains under curfew, with blood and body parts still visible in the shattered main square.
Survivors' accounts say Friday's massacre began shortly after 5pm.
Since the previous evening the main square had been occupied by thousands of opposition demonstrators. Armed rebels had taken control of the adjacent regional government building the day before.
Many in the crowd had come along out of curiosity.
Without warning, groups of eight-wheeled armoured personnel carriers rolled into town.
Moving at high speed, one column raced into the square, and soldiers on board began shooting into the crowd without warning.
"They shot at us like rabbits," a boy in his late teens said.
Panic broke out and the crowd scattered. The army units then advanced on a high school occupied by rebels.
The rebels forced captured policemen to leave the school and form a "human shield" in front of the soldiers. But the troops blasted through them.
"About 10 policemen were pushed ahead of the crowd as hostages," a 35-year-old businessman told Reuters.
He said an armoured personnel carrier and troops took up position in front of them.
"'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!' they [ the police] begged. But then the APC opened fire from about 150 metres away."
Shooting continued for some hours as troops chased demonstrators and rebels through narrow side streets.
By evening the killing was over, and witnesses described seeing the square littered with bodies and burning cars. Some soldiers were also shot dead, apparently by rebels barricaded inside government headquarters.
Andijan human rights campaigner Saidzhakhon Zaidabitdinov has said up to 500 were killed, but there was no independent confirmation of this.
One witness described watching soldiers shoot dead several wounded people who had been lying in the square overnight.
"Those wounded who tried to get away were finished with single shots from a Kalashnikov rifle," said the businessman.
"Three or four soldiers were assigned to killing the wounded."
Uzbek president Islam Karimov said no order had been given to fire on the crowd.
"I categorically banned the use of physical force against women, children and the elderly," he said.
He blamed the violence on a banned group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is campaigning for an Islamic state across Central Asia.
The massacre comes after a year of tension that began last summer with a spate of terror bombings in Uzbekistan that the government blamed on Islamic extremists.
Apparently using this as an excuse, police staged a round-up of government opponents.
Among them was a group of 23 Andijan businessmen accused of belonging to a radical Islamist group, Akramiya.
The businessmen denied connections with the group, or with Hizb ut-Tahrir. They told judges they had organised a pooling system to boost local businesses in what is a poor region with high unemployment.
Thousands of refugees crossed into nearby Kyrgyzstan over the weekend, where the Red Cross set up a camp for 530 refugees, including women and children.
The unrest presents a quandary for the US - which has declined comment on the situation - because Mr Karimov is considered a key ally in the fight against terrorism and the US maintains a military base in Uzbekistan to support anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan.