OSH, Kyrgyzstan -- Virtually all of the tens of thousands of people who fled ethnic fighting in Kyrgyzstan earlier this month
| Previous reports had the number at 400,000 refugees, if I recall correctly... |
streamed back into the country over the course of a few days last week, driven by fear of losing their citizenship if they did not vote in Sunday's constitutional referendum.
| Which answers the question asked previously. |
The massive and unexpected shift in refugees' location has disrupted the relief effort. Thousands of tents flown into Uzbekistan by the United Nations are now empty in 46 camps that are formally closed by that country. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of returnees have no homes or shelter back in Kyrgyzstan, and are now badly in need of these very supplies -- as well as terrified for their safety.
| Which raises another question: why is voting more important than safety? |
| Appearances are important ... |
The scale of destruction in the Uzbek neighborhoods of this southern city is otherworldly: block after block of charred timbers, downed power lines, burned dump trucks jackknifed into the alleyways, and ubiquitous glass and ceramic tile shards, all smelling of cinders. Everywhere the eye falls has been devastated, ruined, looted.
| And, presumably, full of milling multitudes of recently returned mothers and children. |
|