Kyrgyz death toll could be 2,000

Ethnic Uzbek refugees cross the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border on their way back to Kyrgyzstan near the village of Vlksm some 20 km outside Osh yesterday. WHO said it was working on a worst-case estimate that the crisis in Kyrgyzstan may affect up to one million people, about a third of whom could be refugees. Photo: AFP

Kyrgyzstan's acting leader admitted the death toll from ethnic clashes is probably 2,000 -- ten times the current estimate -- as she went to the ravaged south where the UN said up to a million people may have been affected.
Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva, wearing a bulletproof vest and accompanied by a heavy security detail, landed by helicopter for her first visit to the devastated city of Osh since unrest erupted one week ago.
"I came here to see, to speak with the people and hear firsthand what happened here. We will do everything to rebuild this city," Otunbayeva said before a handful of people on the main square.
In an interview ahead of her trip, Otunbayeva admitted that the official death toll, which the health ministry said yesterday had reached 192, was vastly underestimated.
"I would multiply by 10 times the official figures," she said in an interview with the Russian daily Kommersant published yesterday.
"There were very many deaths in the countryside, and our customs dictate that we bury our dead right away, before sunset," meaning that many bodies were buried before deaths could be registered with authorities, she said.
The UN's World Health Organisation said it was working on a worst-case estimate that the crisis could affect up to one million people.
"We are working with a planning figure of one million people that have been directly or indirectly affected by this event -- 300,000 of them... refugees," said Giuseppe Annunziata, WHO coordinator for emergency programme support.
In Osh, Otunbayeva defended her government from criticism that it had been unable to contain the ethnic bloodshed and to cope with the escalating humanitarian crisis.
"Leave us some hope! Stop saying that we are not working," she said. "Our forces say that they are coping."
The provisional government, which seized power in an April uprising, has insisted it is in control.
Otunbayeva stayed away from the city's devastated Uzbek neighbourhoods -- many of which were burnt to the ground amid the worst of the ethnic bloodshed.

Victims of the unrest have told AFP that the violence was a brutal and orchestrated campaign by armed militias of ethnic Kyrgyz targeting Uzbek neighbours.
But Otunbayeva played down the scale of animosity between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that fueled the clashes.
"We have always lived together and we always will live together," she said.
In a joint letter released yesterday, the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch appealed to the UN Security Council to take "immediate steps to address the ongoing crisis in Kyrgyzstan".

"The situation poses a significant threat to international peace and security," the two groups said, calling for the deployment of "an international stabilisation mission" to provide security and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The riots were the worst inter-ethnic clashes to hit the impoverished Central Asian state since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Uzbeks make up 14 percent of Kyrgyzstan's population of 5.3 million.