An estimated 400,000 people - nearly one-twelfth the population - have fled their homes to escape Kyrgyzstan's ethnic violence, the UN said on Thursday as throngs of refugees huddled in grim camps along the Uzbekistan border without adequate food or water.
That figure represents half the roughly 800,000 ethnic Uzbeks who lived in Kyrgyzstan's south before Central Asia's worst ethnic violence in decades erupted there last week.
More than 200 people - possibly many more - have been killed, and Uzbeks have been all but purged from some parts of the south.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Uzbeks make 'slaughter' allegations
Ethnic Uzbeks on Thursday accused security forces of standing by or even helping ethnic-majority Kyrgyz mobs as they slaughtered people and burned down neighbourhoods.
Colonel Iskander Ikramov, the chief of the Kyrgyz military in the south, rejected allegations of troop involvement in the riots but said the army didn't interfere in the conflict because it was not supposed to play the role of a police force.
The military and police set up roadblocks and began patrols this week after the worst violence was over.
Sexual assaults
Uzbeks interviewed by Associated Press journalists in Osh, the country's second-largest city, said that on one street alone, ethnic Kyrgyz men sexually assaulted and beat more than 10 Uzbek women and girls, including some pregnant women and children as young as 12.
Matlyuba Akramova showed journalists a 16-year-old relative who appeared to be in a state of shock, and said she had been hiding in the attic as Kyrgyz mobs beat her father in their home in the Cheryomushki neighbourhood.
Akramova said that when the girl came downstairs to bandage her father's head, another group of attackers sexually assaulted her in front of him.
"What they did to her - even animals wouldn't do that," Akramova said.
"She lost consciousness when they started beating her on the back with feet."
Scale of rapes 'indeterminable'
Human Rights Watch researcher Anna Neistat, who is investigating the violence in Osh, said it was difficult to say how many rapes occurred.
"...I can say with confidence that cases like this did happen. The question is the scale."
Members of the Kyrgyz community have denied accusations of brutality and have accused Uzbeks of raping Kyrgyz women.
Eyewitnesses and experts say many Kyrgyz were killed in the unrest, but most victims appear to have been Uzbeks, traditional farmers and traders who speak a different Turkic language and have been more prosperous than the Kyrgyz, who come from a nomadic tradition.
Thousands 'driven from homes'
Odinama Matkadyrovna, an Uzbek doctor in Osh, said there were probably more rapes than have been reported, but many victims were reluctant to speak out about their experience.
"Our mentality is such that they conceal (cases of rape)," she told the Associated Press Television News.
UN Humanitarian Office spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said an estimated 400,000 people have been driven from their homes.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that at least 40,000 of the internally displaced need shelter, but many have been taken in by family or other people.
Military brought into question
Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch researcher investigating the violence in Osh, said he saw soldiers fail to protect residents, and that many witnesses said the military went a step further and helped the rioters.
"This is an extreme failure on the part of the government to intervene and protect these people", he told APTN.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that Uzbek authorities set up dozens of camps for refugees in three border provinces and made some 70 schools available for sheltering them.
The vast majority of the refugees are women, children and elderly people and over 350 pregnant women have been registered so far.
Aid relief trickles in
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Wednesday sent two flights to Uzbekistan to deliver relief supplies to the Andijan area where most of the refugees are located, and other UN organisations also have provided assistance.
Many of the thousands of refugees to have crossed into Uzbekistan said they are afraid to return to Osh, a city with a population of more than 1.1 million together with nearby areas.
Many would have nowhere to live if they returned.
