Source: DTN News / By Tolkun Namatbayeva, Agence France-Presse (NSI News Source Info) BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - May 15, 2010: Rival groups clashed in southern Kyrgyzstan Friday as the interim government retook official buildings from backers of ousted leader
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, leaving at least one dead and scores injured.Shots rang out during street battles in the cities of Osh and Jalalabad, where hundreds of Bakiyev supporters battled factions loyal to the government with sticks and stones, officials and reports said.
The health ministry said one person was killed in Jalalabad and 59 were wounded, 26 of them with gunshot wounds, lowering the number of injured from 63.
Unconfirmed reports put the death toll higher.
A doctor at Jalalabad regional hospital told AFP that three people died in the clashes, while a spokeswoman for Bakiyev's support committee, Dzhanara Moldokulova, told AFP that eight protesters were killed.
Government supporters regained control of regional administration headquarters in Jalalabad and Osh after they were seized by supporters of former president Bakiyev on Thursday, government officials said.
In Bishkek, government head Roza Otunbayeva said authorities were "taking all measures to peacefully resolve the situation." The capital is calm, she added and the government is "taking measures to restore order in Jalalabad."
Several Bakiyev allies, including the former head of his office, Usen Sydykov, were detained during the clashes, Otunbayeva said.
Protesters burnt down three houses belonging to Bakiyev and his brothers in a village outside Jalalabad, a spokesman for the interim government, Farid Niyazov
told journalists.
"The arson attacks were carried out by relatives of people who suffered in the people's uprising in Bishkek on April," Niyanzov said, adding that no one was injured.
The U.S. embassy in Bishkek, in a statement, expressed concern about the violence, urging "the peaceful resolution to the problems that have caused this situation."
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Friday sent his special representative, Vladimir Rushailo, to Bishkek, where he held talks with Otunbayeva.
"Russia has come to help us," Otunbayeva told journalists after the talks. "President Dmitry Medvedev said clearly: they will support Kyrgyzstan politically and materially at this hour."
"Our aim is to help Kyrgyzstan in all aspects of its activities," Rushailo told journalists.
The interim government, which took power after Bakiyev was ousted in an uprising last month, has so far avoided using security forces against protesters in a bid not to inflame tensions.
Media reports said the government had sent special forces to Osh to stabilize the situation and the troops were on their way to impose order in Jalalabad.
Otunbayeva said that the gunfire had come from Bakiyev supporters who had "again spilled the blood of citizens of Kyrgyzstan".
Around 1,500 Bakiyev supporters took part in protests in Jalalabal, at one point occupying the regional administration, their spokeswoman Moldokulova told AFP.
"We do not intend to retreat until the legitimate president Bakiyev returns to Kyrgyzstan," she said.
The protests that ousted Bakiyev in April left at least 86 people dead and the interim government has since struggled to impose its authority.
Bakiyev, who drew the bulk of his support from southern Kyrgyzstan, has since taken refuge in Belarus, which has so far not responded to calls for his extradition.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned last month Kyrgyzstan risked civil war but the situation calmed with the departure of Bakiyev.
Bakiyev came to power in the so-called Tulip Revolution uprising of 2005 which ousted the previous president Askar Akayev — but became increasingly unpopular amid allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
The mountainous ex-Soviet state is in a key strategic location and houses a U.S. airbase used for the transit of supplies for the conflict in Afghanistan as well as a Russian military base.
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