UNHCR airlifts 11 more Uzbek refugees out

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed on Friday it had successfully evacuated eleven more Uzbek nationals - part of the original Andijan 15 - out of Kyrgyzstan for third country resettlement. "I can confirm that the group has left Kyrgyzstan and is now bound for London," Carlos Zaccagnini, chief of mission for UNHCR, said from the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, referring to the UNHCR-mandated refugees who boarded a scheduled British Airlines flight at 10:00 am local time. The group had been airlifted early on Friday from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh for Bishkek where they had been held in detention. "They stayed at the airport for a couple of hours and then they flew out. It went without any major constraint," Zaccagnini said. The group, comprised of 11 men, had earlier been reportedly accepted for resettlement in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands. More than 1,000 Uzbeks fled to neighbouring Kyrgyzstan after troops quelled anti-government demonstrations in the southern Uzbek city of Andijan on 13 May, killing upwards of 1,000 unarmed civilians, according to some rights groups. The Uzbek government claims the death toll was 187. Fearful of persecution and torture if they returned, more than 400 Uzbeks were flown to Romania for third-country resettlement in late July after receiving UNHCR-mandated refugee status. To date, twelve countries have volunteered to accept them - including the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Great Britain, Canada, the United States, and Australia. But the status of 15 more Uzbeks, 11 of whom also had UNHCR-mandated refugee status, had been unresolved, further straining relations between Kyrgyzstan and its powerful neighbour to the west. Tashkent had demanded their immediate extradition on charges of inciting terrorism. Languishing at a detention centre in Osh, it was unclear what Kyrgyzstan would do with the group. A reprieve for eleven of the 15 arrived on Wednesday when Bishkek, under strong Western pressure, announced it would hand them over to UNHCR. "The Prosecutor General decided yesterday that 11 (Uzbek) citizens must be handed to the jurisdiction of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees," a Reuters report quoted Zafer Khakimov, head of the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry's migration service, as saying. As for the remaining four still in detention, Zaccagnini remarked: "They remain in detention and we will address their situation subsequently." A final decision on their fate has yet to be reached. On 18 August, an appeal to overturn a decision by the Kyrgyz migration authorities to not grant them refugee status had been granted by a city court in Bishkek.