A humanitarian catastrophe is in the making in Kyrgyzstan, where ethnic violence has displaced tens of thousands of people.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, said she was "very concerned" about the unrest in Kyrgyzstan that according to Kyrgyz officials has killed at least 117 people and injured more than 1,400 others.
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle of Germany, the only European nation with an embassy in Kyrgyzstan, in a statement Sunday appealed to "every side to cease the violence immediately."
Over the weekend, angry mobs of Kyrgyz rioters attacked ethnic Uzbeks in Osh, the country's second-largest city, burning their homes, damaging their cars, killing men, women and children.
The chaos has caused Uzbeks to flee their homes and cross into neighboring Uzbekistan, where an estimated 80,000 people are living in refugee camps.
The International Community of the Red Cross said a team of crisis management experts arrived in the former Soviet republic Monday to assess the situation.
"We are extremely concerned about the nature of the violence that is taking place and are getting reports of severe brutality, with an intent to kill and harm," Severine Chappaz, the deputy head of the International Community of the Red Cross' mission in Kyrgyzstan, said in a statement.
The country's interim government, which is in place since April when a bloody coup ousted the previous president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, admitted that it has lost control over the situation.
The leader of the interim government, Roza Otunbayeva, over the weekend pleaded with Russia to send troops to help stabilize the situation.
Even Bakiyev, who after the coup fled to Belarus, Monday called for an end to the fighting.
"I am calling on the two brotherly peoples, the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek ones, to stop bloodshed, because the interim government is incapable of doing so," he was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Interfax Monday in Minsk. Bakiyev also called for Russian-led peacekeepers to stabilize the situation.
The Kremlin, however, isn't eager to get involved.
"This is an internal conflict and Russia sees no grounds for getting involved in its resolution," Natalia Timakova, a spokeswoman for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was quoted as saying by Russian news agency ITAR-Tass.
Moscow has pledged to provide humanitarian assistance and over the weekend sent additional paratroopers to the country but so far only to protect its interests in Kyrgyzstan. Russia operates several military bases in the country. Kyrgyzstan is also home to a key U.S. air base in Manas, which is used to fly troops and equipment in and out of Afghanistan.
A country of 5 million located in the mountains of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is one of the poorest countries of the former Soviet Union.
Unlike its neighbors, Kyrgyzstan has no significant natural resources; more than half of the adult population is unemployed; and its political system has been marred by instability and corruption.
Washington and other Western powers are concerned that a civil war in Kyrgyzstan could spill into neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, destabilizing the entire region.
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