KYRGYZSTAN: Foreign students evacuated

Governments of a number of countries moved swiftly to evacuate their nationals, many of them students at universities in Southern Kyrgyztan as violence erupted in the southern part of the Central Asian Republic last week, the worst unrest to hit the country since the ousting of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April.

In the Southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad three major universities were completely destroyed in armed attacks. They included Jalalabad State University, Jalalabad Medical University and Kyrgyz Uzbek University in Osh, affecting over 12,000 students, Gulnara Chokusheva told University World News from Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.

"How many students are victims - those overall statistics are not clear, but these were very big universities," said Chokusheva coordinator in Kyrgyzstan of the EU's Tempus project to modernise higher education in the region.

The universities were particularly targeted as events that sparked off the latest bloody unrest began in student dormitories, she said, referring to a shootout on 19 May that destroyed the private People's Friendship University in Jalalabad

China, Pakistan, India and Turkey have the largest number of students in Kyrgyzstan, particularly Osh and Jalalabad. Other groups of students are from Afghanistan, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine.

After the May incident that destroyed the People's Friendship University, university buildings were seen as a particular target prompting the evacuation of students.

During the week, China evacuated some 1,300 nationals, mostly students from Osh. They were flown to Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang province, which neighbours on Kyrgyzstan.

The majority of Chinese students in Kyrgyzstan are ethnic Uigurs, Turkic speaking Muslims from Xinjiang Province. A large number of them are studying Russian and business at Kyrgyz universities.

Turkey also evacuated around 100 citizens, mainly women, children and students from Osh. Professor Cemal Agirman from the Turkish Cumhuriyet University told local Turkish newspapers that many students, both Turkish and Uzbek, had taken shelter from the violence in Turkish schools and student dorms.

Students from Osh State University and Turkish colleges in Southern Kyrgyzstan said their teachers had fought to protect them from attack from angry mobs, according to Turkish newspaper reports.

Pakistan sent military plans to evacuate up to 700 nationals, while the foreign ministry in Delhi said it had evacuated around 116 of its students from the towns of Osh and Jalalabad to the capital Bishkek, which has been unaffected by the unrest.

The Pakistan foreign ministry said between 1,200 and 1,500 Pakistani students were studying in Kyrgyzstan, around half of them in the affected southern part of the country.

"I will never forget the gory scenes. We saw human beings lying in pools of blood when we were going to the airport to board the C-130 (aircraft) sent for us by the Pakistan government," Pakistani student Izhar Qazi, in his fourth year of medical studies at Osh University, told the Karachi-based newspaper Dawn. "We are much worried about our future," he said.

Although cheaper than studying at home, many foreign students had shelved out large sums of money and were concerned that they would not be able to complete their degrees.

"Osh state university attracted a lot of Indian and Pakistani students for their medical degrees. At this stage their education has more or less stopped until the situation gets better," said Elmira Satybalideva, who is from Osh and a former lecturer at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek.

Some 300 Turkmen students from different universities in Southern Kyrgyzstan were also flown out of Osh on three different flights to Ashgabat and Turkmenabat in Turkmenistan on 14 to 15 June, when violence was at its height. But another 350 Turkmen students were forced to flee to the Uzbek border when a fourth flight failed to materialise, radio reports from Turkmenistan said.

The current wave of unrest erupted on 11 June when gangs of armed Kyrgyz men, thought to be Bakiyev supporters, marched on Uzbek neighbourhoods in Osh, and set homes on fire. Osh has traditionally been a base of Bakiyev support.

"Osh is in a state of total destruction. Those who have left the universities in Osh will not come back until there is some sense of security," said Satybalideva.

The violence cased at least 300,000 to flee from the south, while another 100,000 Uzbek refugees poured into neighbouring Uzbekistan, according to the UN,

Kyrgyzstan is a hub for education in the region and attracts large numbers of foreign students.

Even though it has a population of only five million, it hosts several international universities including joint universities which award dual degrees with Russian universities, and the prestigious American University of Central Asia, a magnet for western academics specialising in Central Asia.

"The Russian students have all left," Chokusheva said on her return from a meeting on Friday with the Kyrgyz education ministry to report on the situation in universities.

"Kyrgyzstan is one of the countries in the region that has put more priority on higher education than other neighbouring countries, and has opened a number of international universities that attract foreign students," Satybaldieva said.


Other universities include the International Ataturk Alatoo University in Bishkek funded by a Turkish philanthropist. It provides free accommodation and food, and highly subsidised tuition for poorer students. The university attracts many students from the region including Uzbeks as well as students from eastern Turkey.

Universities in the south, where the Uzbek population is more concentrated, had large numbers of Uzbek students, Chokusheva said.

"They are quite young and influenced by the events. Students came under provocation when a group of people interfered in their dormitory," Chokusheva said.

In May shadowy Uzbek leader Kadyrjan Batyrov, a wealthy businessman who had funded the construction of the People's Friendship University in Jalalabad, inflamed local anger by repeatedly broadcasting that Uzbek should be a national language on par with Russian.

An anti-Uzbek group surrounded the university, which also serves as a centre for the Uzbek community, where Batyrov had fled to take shelter. Batyrov's armed men opened fire from inside the dormitories killing two and injuring around 90 in the crowd outside.

The ministry of education pledged that it would rebuild Jalalabad State University and Jalalabad University, Chokusheva said Friday. But the future of the Kyrgyz Uzbek University was less clear.

"We are very worried about the Uzbek population. A lot of people are very traumatised. I don't know how many are planning to return," Satybaldieva said. "We need to put an effort into rebuilding their houses and assist them to come back, but even then it will take a very long time."

"At this stage the priority is restoring peace and normality and once we have achieved that, then we can think of having them back," Satybaldieva said.