Uznews.net – About 700 refugees from Kyrgyzstan are still remaining illegal in Andijan Region because they do not want to return to their destroyed homes and are going hungry.

The leader of the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan, Yelena Urlayeva, started monitoring the state of refugees who remained illegal in Uzbekistan at the end of June when she took humanitarian aid to Andijan.

“What at first surprised me was the absence of people on Andijan streets. The community leader from Kyrgyzstan’s Bazarkurgan, Muhammadkadyr Karabayev, met me on the outskirts of the town and always looked around and whispered,” she said. “I learnt from him that all refugees from camps in Uzbekistan were forcibly driven to Kyrgyzstan on 25 June. Only about 1,000 people, including Karabayev who managed to hide, were then remaining illegally [Uzbekistan].”

Karabayev said that those who had stayed behind in Andijan Region had come to Uzbekistan on the first days of the bloody events and were not officially

	Urlayeva with Karabayev

registered.

After the en-masse forcible relocation of refugees back to Kyrgyzstan before the referendum on constitutional changes on 27 June, they have lost trust in the Uzbek authorities and are now hiding in basements and sheds.

Karabayev said that the illegal refugees’ main goal now was to move from Uzbekistan to other countries where there were missions of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Urlayeva found only 15 people in a regional hospital in Andijan, which was full of people injured in southern Kyrgyzstan only a couple of weeks ago.

She failed to find out about missing people, as prosecutors forced her to cut her visit short. She thinks that injured people had also been forcibly taken to Kyrgyzstan.

The state of illegal refugees has not changed at all. They are still in hiding in basements and sheds and are suffering from malnutrition. They also have to avoid police informers who swarm in great numbers in Andijan Region.

These informers helped police catch dozens of refugees and send back to Kyrgyzstan. Only 200 refugees have now managed to leave for Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Russia.

Karabayev said that about 700 illegal refugees were still remaining in Andijan Region.

Human rights activists are now trying to send them to other countries. Priority is given to families with children. The situation is complicated by the fact that they do not have papers because they were burnt down with their homes.