Uzbek Rioters Escalate Rampage, Toll Hits 71

Thousands of rioters in Uzbekistan attacked government offices and a police station in a bid to seize firearms, and the death toll in the five-day rampage rose to at least 71, official media said today.

“Corpses are being found in gutted houses and the wounded are dying in hospitals,” Uzbek Premier Gairat Kadyrov told the government newspaper Izvestia.

At least 71 people had been killed and the figure will probably continue climbing, he said.

The violence began June 3 with fighting between ethnic Uzbeks and the Meskhi Turk minority, forcibly resettled in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan by Josef Stalin in 1944.

Officials have not been able to contain it despite evacuating more than 10,000 of the Meskhi minority and sending in 9,000 Interior Ministry soldiers.

The bloodshed in eastern Uzbekistan was the latest in a series of violent clashes that have embroiled the southern rim of the Soviet Union for more than a year.

‘Excited by Alcohol’

Scores of people have been killed in the Caucasus republics of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the violence has spread recently to Turkmenia and Uzbekistan in Central Asia.

Tass press agency said the latest spark was Wednesday in Kokand when “thousands of people excited by alcohol, drugs and calls for violence . . . stormed the city police department to seize firearms.”

At the same time a crowd of 500 to 600 attacked a local Interior Ministry transportation office, it said.

The attacks failed, but a preliminary count indicated that six people were killed. More than 90, including soldiers, were injured. Sixty-five houses and six offices were burned, it said.

“More houses are burning,” Tass added.

Tass said that soldiers were given orders to shoot to protect themselves but that so far they had avoided opening fire.

“The crowds of attackers have been dispersed, and most active rioters have been detained,” it said.

Official Radio Moscow said more than 600 people have been hurt and more than 400 suspects in the ethnic violence have been arrested.

The official radio said shooting and arson attempts continued Wednesday night in the regional center of Fergana, with a population of more than 200,000.