OSH, Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyzstan's interim president said Friday that 2,000 people may have died in the ethnic clashes that have rocked the country's south — many times her government's official estimate — as she made her first visit to a riot-hit city since the unrest erupted.
Kyrgyz Health Ministry official figures have put the number of killed in rampages led mainly by ethnic Kyrgyz against Uzbeks at 191.
"I would increase by 10 times the official data on the number of people killed," Interim President Roza Otunbayeva said, according to her spokesman, Farid Niyazov.
She said current figures don't take into account those buried before sundown on the day of death in keeping with Muslim tradition, according to the spokesman.
The United Nations said that as many as 1 million people may eventually need aid in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, including the refugees, internally displaced, host families and others who may suffer from the unrest.
