With fires raging in the southern city of Osh for a fourth day Monday, the official death toll of 124 killed and nearly 1,500 injured from the clashes that began Thursday appeared way too low.
An Uzbek community leader claimed at least 200 Uzbeks alone had already been buried, and the Red Cross said its delegates saw about 100 bodies being buried in just one cemetery.
The United States, Russia and the United Nations worked on humanitarian aid airlifts while neighboring Uzbekistan hastily set up camps to handle the flood of hungry, frightened refugees. Most were women, children and the elderly, many of whom Uzbekistan said had gunshot wounds.
The interim government, which took over after former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted by a mass revolt in April, has been unable to stop the violence and accused Bakiyev's family of instigating it to halt a June 27 vote.
Uzbeks have backed the interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south have supported the toppled president.
The government said Monday it had arrested a “well-known person” suspected of stoking the violence, but gave no further details. Suspects from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan were also detained and claimed to have been hired by supporters of Bakiyev, government spokesman Farid Niyazov said.
The interim government had planned a referendum to approve a new constitution on June 27, but it now appears unlikely the vote will take place. New parliamentary elections are scheduled for October, but the violence appears aimed at undermining the interim government before then.
From his self-imposed exile in Belarus, Bakiyev has denied any role in the violence.
Jallahitdin Jalilatdinov, who heads the Uzbek National Center, told The Associated Press on Monday that at least 100,000 Uzbeks were awaiting entry into Uzbekistan, while another 80,000 had already crossed over the border.
An AP reporter saw hundreds of Uzbek refugees stuck in no-man's-land at a border crossing near Jalal-Abad, while an AP photographer saw hundreds of refugees in a camp on the Uzbek side.
Desperate refugee women grabbed loaves of flat bread handed out by aid workers amid the chaos.
New fires raged Monday across Osh — the country's second-largest city — which is five kilometers from the border with Uzbekistan. Food and water were scarce as armed looters smashed stores, stealing everything from televisions to food. Cars stolen from ethnic Uzbeks raced around the city, most crowded with young Kyrgyz wielding sharpened sticks, axes and metal rods.
In the mainly Uzbek district of Aravanskoe, an area formerly brimming with shops and restaurants, entire streets were burned to the ground. In one still-smoldering building, an AP photographer saw the charred bodies of three people.
No police or troops were seen on the streets of the city of 250,000.
Hundreds of residents gathered at Osh's central square Monday seeking to get on buses heading to the airport.
Meanwhile, Kyrgyz security chief Kenishbek Duishebayev says the younger son of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has been arrested earlier in Britain when he flew into a Hampshire airport on a leased private plane.
Prosecutors, who placed Maxim Bakiyev on an international wanted list in May, allege companies he owned avoided almost $80 million in taxes on aviation fuel sold to suppliers of the US air base.
