BISHKEK/OSH (Reuters) – EU foreign ministers are in talks to install an international police force in southern Kyrgyzstan to stabilise the strategic Central Asian state after this month’s ethnic clashes, an OSCE official said on Wednesday.

Kimmo Kiljunen, special envoy for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said an international police operation could create an “atmosphere of trust” in a region devastated by ethnic bloodshed.

OSH, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – Ethnic Uzbeks blockaded themselves into parts of Osh on Tuesday, afraid of renewed raids by Kyrgyz security forces after the violent clashes that have killed up to 2,000 in the south of the former Soviet republic.

Osh, epicentre of the bloodletting this month, was tense a day after security forces stormed ethnic Uzbek neighbourhoods to search for weapons ahead of a referendum on June 27 that the interim government hopes will secure its rule of Kyrgyzstan.

OSH, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – Kyrgyzstan’s security forces clashed with ethnic Uzbeks on Monday in the south of the former Soviet republic, where up to 2,000 people were killed in a wave of bloodletting earlier this month.

Rights groups said four people were killed and more than 20 wounded when Kyrgyz forces raided an Uzbek village near Osh, epicenter of the ethnic clashes that broke out on June 10.

JALALABAD Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – Kyrgyz leader Roza Otunbayeva pledged on Monday to press ahead with a referendum in six days’ time for the sake of the country’s stability, despite calls to postpone it after a wave of ethnic violence.

Otunbayeva flew to Jalalabad, one of the southern Kyrgyz cities ravaged by the violence that has displaced 400,000 residents and raised concerns in the United States and Russia that turmoil could spread to other parts of Central Asia.

OSH, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – Kyrgyz forces started removing barriers dividing the burned-out city of Osh on Sunday as the government extended a state of emergency in some regions where up to 2,000 people have been killed in ethnic clashes.

Cars, tyres and piles of scrap metal, however, remained in place across alleys in central Osh leading to neighborhoods occupied by ethnic Uzbeks, still fearful of more violence.

BISHKEK (Reuters) – The U.S. envoy for Central Asia visited Kyrgyzstan on Saturday after the State Department suggested the country’s deposed president may be responsible for last week’s outburst of ethnic violence.

The United States and Russia, both operating military air bases in the strategic Muslim nation, are concerned that continued turmoil in Kyrgyzstan could spread to other parts of Central Asia, a vast former Soviet region north of Afghanistan.

BISHKEK (Reuters) – The U.S. envoy for Central Asia visited conflict-torn Kyrgyzstan on Saturday after the State Department suggested the country’s deposed president may be responsible for last week’s outburst of ethnic violence.

The United States and Russia, both operating military air bases in the strategic Muslim nation, are concerned that continued turmoil in Kyrgyzstan would spread to other parts of Central Asia, a vast former Soviet region north of Afghanistan.

BISHKEK (Reuters) – The U.S. envoy for Central Asia visited conflict-torn Kyrgyzstan on Saturday after the State Department suggested the country’s deposed president may be responsible for last week’s outburst of ethnic violence.

The United States and Russia, both operating military air bases in the strategic Muslim nation, are concerned that continued turmoil in Kyrgyzstan would spread to other parts of Central Asia, a vast former Soviet region north of Afghanistan.

SURATASH, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – Makeshift camps on both sides of Kyrgyzstan’s border with Uzbekistan are home to 400,000 refugees uprooted by ethnic violence, the United Nations said on Thursday, and the area remains extremely tense.

Many refugees are running short of basic supplies and fear fresh attacks. In one camp, clay houses were crammed with dozens of refugees and many others are having to sleep rough.

SURATASH, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – Erkin Saipedinov quickly learned the basics of surgery when he joined the tens of thousands fleeing ethnic bloodshed in the Kyrgyz city of Osh.

A doctor by profession, he now performs emergency operations in a mosque only yards (meters) from the border with Uzbekistan. Up to 300 people a day require medical treatment in squalid conditions. Disease is starting to spread among the refugees.