The United States intends to allocate an additional $32 million in aid to Kyrgyzstan to help the country deal with the aftermath of recent inter-ethnic riots, the U.S. embassy in Tashkent said on Friday.
Violent clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks broke in the former Soviet Central Asian republic on June 11, beginning in the southern city of Osh and spreading to nearby Jalalabad region. The official death toll stands at 260 people, although officials say the figure could be ten times higher.
The embassy said a large proportion of the money would be spent on medical care but money would also be allocated to supporting refugees, stabilizing the situation in the region and investigating the causes of the unrest.
The Kyrgyz interim government has blamed the riots on ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who fled the country amid opposition protests in April and has taken refuge in Belarus. Bakiyev has strongly denied any connection to the riots, the worst inter-ethnic violence to hit the republic in two decades.
The statement said the United States had already sent more than $21 million in aid to Kyrgyzstan and has been closely following the situation in the country and neighboring Uzbekistan, where some 100,000 thousand refugees have taken refuge.
Many countries, including Russia, have sent humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan following the unrest.
TASHKENT, June 25 (RIA Novosti)
