21 Victims Of Ethnic Clashes In Kyrgyzstan Still Unidentified

Ibragim Junusov

BISHKEK -- The bodies of 21 people killed in last year's ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan have still not been identified after DNA analysis abroad, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

Deputy Prime Minister Ibragim Junusov told journalists in Bishkek today that forensic laboratories in China and Russia performed DNA analysis on the remains but were unable to identify the bodies.

Junusov said 447 people are known to have died in the violence between ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz residents of the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions in mid-June last year. He did not specify the exact number of people still missing after the clashes, but previous reports said a few dozen people have not been found.

Thousands were injured in the clashes and tens of thousands displaced. The majority of those killed, injured, and displaced were ethnic Uzbeks.

Read more in Kyrgyz here