UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today called for humanitarian support for Uzbeks fleeing the fighting in Kyrgyzstan, according to dpa. Ban talked by telephone with President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan during a brief airport stop-over in London on his way back to New York. He plans to discuss with the UN Security Council ways to deal with the growing Kyrgyz ethnic conflict. A UN spokesman said Ban expressed appreciation to Karimov's "constructive efforts in addressing the alarming humanitarian situation in Kyrgyzstan, particularly in opening the border for refugees and providing for their care despite limited resources." Ban said he will mobilize all necessary assistance in close coordination with relevant UN agencies and governments in the region to help people displaced by the fighting in southern Kyrgyzstan as well as those seeking refuge in Uzbekistan. The Uzbek government has allowed a UN official in Tashkent to visit refugee camps to assess the refugees' needs. A UN adviser on the prevention of genocide warned on Tuesday that the targeting of ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan could amount to "ethnic cleansing." Ethnic tensions erupted in April following the ouster of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, pitting Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities in the south. Renewed violence in June was aimed at the Uzbeks in particular, the UN noted. "The pattern and scale of the violence, which resulted in the mass displacement of Uzbeks from South Kyrgyzstan, could amount to ethnic cleansing," said Edward Luck, the special adviser on genocide. The fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz majority and Uzbek minority has killed more than 100 people and injured over 1,500 others mostly in the southern Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad. At least 100,000 Uzbeks were said to have fled from the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad.
