The crisis in Kyrgyzstan could soon become a “catastrophe” if the international community does not swiftly intervene, the head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said Wednesday. Speaking on German radio during a visit to Berlin, Antonio Guterres said: “What is happening is already a tragedy and it could become a catastrophe. We urgently need to find a political solution...the country's neighbors and the international community must do everything in their power to help the interim Kyrgyz government restore peace and stability,” he added. Uzbek officials have said that over 75,000 people have fled ethnic fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan. Guterres called for international military help, saying that the Kyrgyz authorities were not in a position to control the violence. A plane carrying the first foreign aid for refugees arrived earlier Wednesday in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, local officials said. Kyrgyz troops patrolled the burned-out streets of the southern city of Osh on Wednesday to maintain a fragile peace between ethnic groups after days of fighting that forced tens of thousands to flee. At least 187 people have been killed and nearly 2,000 wounded, mainly in Osh, a low-rise city of mud-brick houses and crumbling Soviet-era architecture near the Uzbek border. The new government has accused deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, an ethnic Kyrgyz, of instigating the violence. Bakiyev, in exile in Belarus, has denied any involvement. The government says it is determined to hold the referendum on June 27 to vote on constitutional changes it says will make Kyrgyzstan more democratic. But if violence flares again, the vote will be next to impossible to organize.
