OSH, Kyrgyzstan, (23 July 2010) – From the outside, the walled compound of the Kozybaeva household looks relatively undamaged, raising hopes that unlike most of the neighbouring houses, this one might be intact. But just beyond the gate is the burnt-out shell of what used to be the family car. And beyond that are the ruins of what was once the family home.

A solitary tent in the courtyard is shared by the entire multi-generational family as they try to rebuild their lives.

Executive summary

i. Kyrgyzstan has experienced escalating violence since the previous government was overthrown on April 7 and an interim government took power. Subsequently, violent clashes took place in Osh and Jalal-Abad Oblasts (province) throughout April and May and fighting reached its highest intensity from June 10-14 during which shooting, killing, looting, and property destruction were widespread in cities as well as in rural areas leading to mass population displacements. After four days, a state of emergency was declared and an uncertain peace prevailed until the June 27 referendum.

ii. On June 24th, in Osh oblast, UNHCR registered a total of 25 settlements / centres that received IDPs from different rayons (districts). One assessment team met with one displaced Uzbek community in Mady village (Kara Suu rayon) that was not registered by UNHCR. The exact figures on IDPs (how many and where they were/are) and on settlements are not available.    

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, (13 July 2010) – After weeks of violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, Osh is beginning to witness tiny signs of a return to normal life: The streets are filling up with people and cars. Some rush to the market to buy food, others go to visit their relatives and share their blankets and clothes with those who lost everything.

But there is one vital element missing: the children. Many were sent away by their parents for safekeeping, to stay with relatives in remote villages. Only a few families have started to bring them back.

Ongoing field assessments reveal numerous problems and hardships for children and women – regardless of ethnicity – who suffered the most during the civil conflict that broke out in mid-June and now have a long way to recovery. With this in view, UNICEF has opened an operating base in Osh, 600 km form Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.    

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, (6 July 2010) – Viewed from the hill that dominates the centre of Osh, it’s hard to imagine the violence that swept through this city in mid-June. The plumes of smoke that hung over the skyline have long since gone, but when you look more closely, you notice the blackened patches of entire neighbourhoods that were burned out.

In one of those charred and ruined streets, members of the Khatamjon family are trying to rebuild their lives. Mr. Khatamjon used to run a small business. Now he puts his stock-taking skills to work as the coordinator of relief aid to his neighbours. He works with his calculator at a tiny table and stool – just about the only furniture in a ruined shell of a building.   

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, (1 July 2010) – All along the Alisher Navoi Street, the scene is similar from house to house. Some of the buildings are just charred walls. Some have collapsed completely. Others bear bullet holes from intense gunfire.

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The street forms part of a poor ethnic Uzbek neighbourhood that saw some of the worst of the ethnic violence that swept through Osh, Kyrgyzstan in June. In the wake of the devastation, small groups of men, women and children stand along the street, many with a looks of shock or resignation on their faces.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (28 June, 2010) – Mashura Mamakhanova’s thumb and index finger seem impossibly large as they caress her daughter’s tiny hand in the incubator where the newborn sleeps. Born 10 weeks premature, the baby weighs just 900 grammes, but doctors at the Perinatal Centre in Andijan, Uzbekistan had no choice but to induce her birth.

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“The doctors had already told me I was in critical condition with kidney problems and high blood pressure,” Ms. Mamakhanova, 30, said from her hospital bed, where she must still spend most of her day.   

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, (25 June 2010) – The civil unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan has not spared any household in Djalal-Abad province.

Hasan and Zulhumar Amanbaev and their four children lived all their lives in peace in the town of Djalal-Abad. On 12 June, the day after the killings started, they had to flee their house. At first they hid with relatives in Begabat village, several kilometres out of town. But again they were forced to leave, seeking safety in fields or gardens, fearing they would have to flee Kyrgyzstan altogether.     

OSH, 22 June 2010 - UNICEF delivered forty tonnes of much needed emergency supplies to the tense and divided city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan today.

An operations centre has also been established at the airport in Osh to handle a massive airlift of supplies in the pipeline.

UNICEF’s Representative in Kyrgyzstan, Jonathan Veitch, said flights would be arriving daily all this week.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, and KURGANPATA, Uzbekistan, (21 June 2010) – Despite continuing concerns about security, UNICEF has started a large airlift and overland distribution of supplies to people displaced by violence in Kyrgyzstan. At the same time, some of the ethnic Uzbek families that fled the country into neighbouring Uzbekistan have now moved from transit points into bigger camps supported by UNICEF.

More than 200 people are officially confirmed dead and over 2,000 wounded as a result of the violence, which broke out in southern Kyrgyzstan on 10 June, and media reports quoting the country’s interim government continue to suggest that the actual number of casualties could be much higher.

According to government and UN estimates, at least 300,000 people are internally displaced in Kyrgyzstan, while almost 100,000 have crossed the border into Uzbekistan and are now refugees.    

BISHKEK, (June 18 2010) -- UNICEF warned that lack of access was hampering the delivery of humanitarian relief for the 1.1 million people affected by fighting in southern Krygystan.

Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF’s Head of Office in Krygystan said that 40 tonnes of lifesaving water and sanitary supplies would arrive in the capital Bishkek tomorrow.

“However we are concerned that we will be unable to easily and quickly distribute the supplies to the most affected. Security is an issue, particularly as we are transporting valuable material,” he noted.

The situation is exacerbated by criminal activity along roads leading to the south and in Osh and Jalalabad.

“There has been a serious breakdown in infrastructure and security in the south,” Vietch said.