U.N. Humanitarian Office spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said an estimated 300,000 people have been driven from their homes but remain inside the nation of 5.3 million people. She said there are now also about 100,000 refugees in neighboring Uzbekistan. The last official estimate of refugees who fled the country was 75,000. No number of internally displaced has been available.

Violence erupted last week between the majority Kyrgyz population and minority ethnic Uzbeks. Kyrgyzstan's government has accused the country's deposed president of igniting long-standing ethnic tensions by sending gunmen in ski masks to shoot members of both groups. The government, which overthrew President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April, accuses the leader of deep corruption and says that he and his supporters were attempting to shake official control of the south and reassert their control of the Afghan heroin trade in the area.

The deputy chief of the provisional government, Azimbek Beknazarov, said Thursday that authorities had strengthened roadblocks on all entrances into the capital, Bishkek, and tightened security in prisons to prevent Bakiyev's clan from provoking turmoil in the north.

Beknazarov put the official death toll on both sides is 223, but others said the figure could be significantly higher. Many Kyrgyz were killed but the victims appear to have been predominantly Uzbeks, traditional farmers and traders who speak a distinct but separate Turkic language and have traditionally been more prosperous than the Kyrgyz, who come from a nomadic tradition.

Ethnic Uzbeks in camps along the Uzbekistan side of the border told Associated Press reporters Thursday that they were fearful of returning to their homes. Many on the Kyrgyzstan side said they had been prevented from doing so by the authorities, and were awaiting their chance to leave the country for the camps

weapons, heroin and masked gunmen...why of course, it's the CIA ...!

hard to miss, actually.

If they aren't Palestinian ,who cares? Everyone knows that ONLY Palestinian issues are of world importance.

awwww that's so damn cute. the previous spasm of petulance about, no doubt the self raping the Is Really state keeps doing to its public image through their hydrophobic response reflex. Like always having their naked savagery exposed for what is is.

As well as their unremitting lack of shame.

Only Palestinian issues matter anyway, so who cares? Everyone knows that ONLY Palestinian issues are central to the entire world.

that's right... everything has got to be about that pirate state which murdered an unarmed, non- resisting American, execution style, with four shots to the head, on open waters.

And it wasn't a Palestinian which did it.

It was another terrorist from Is Real. The shitty little nation which runs our nation with bribery and blackmail and extortion, for their benefit.