Leave within three days, says Kyrgyz govt

The Kyrgyzstan government gave Pakistani students remaining in the country a three-day ultimatum on Thursday, telling them to return home immediately.  The family of Umar Ayub, a student at the International University of Kyrgyzstan, criticised the Kyrgyz government’s request, saying that it was difficult to fly students home on such short notice. There are only two commercial flights to Kyrgyzstan from Pakistan every week, and tickets have become scarce.

Parents of Pakistani students who are in Kyrgyzstan have appealed to the government to help them bring their children home.

Meanwhile foreign aid finally started reaching hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees who fled deadly clashes in Kyrgyzstan. With estimates of several hundred dead from the clashes between ethnic  Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks, UN and Red Cross agencies said there was now an “immense” humanitarian crisis.

There are at least 400,000 refugees or displaced, according to UN estimates, inside Uzbekistan or stuck on the Kyrgyzstan side of the border who need food, water and medical supplies.

Between 75,000 and 100,000 people were estimated to have taken refuge in Uzbekistan, not counting children, while about 300,000 people were estimated to have been internally displaced, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said.

The US announced it has ramped up its humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan to $6.5 million, as State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the US, which has been coordinating aid with the international community, was expecting the United Nations to “come forward with an appeal” for food aid. Russia has so far declined to send peacekeeping forces into the country.(Additional input from AFP)

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Published in the Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2010.