Kyrgyzstan Remembers and Rebuilds

Images reflect progress made in repairing damaged homes, though mistrust between communities will be harder to mend.

An Uzbek man breaks bread with two Kyrgyz, in a communal ceremony on June 10 to mark the first anniversary of the outbreak of bloodshed in Osh. (Photo: Igor Kovalenko)

Osh’s mayor Melis Myrzakmatov (right) strides ahead of President Roza Otunbaeva, who is accompanied by parliamentary speaker Ahmatbek Keldibekov and a Russian Orthodox cleric. Kyrgyzstan’s central authorities have been accused of failing to exert enough control over local government. (Photo: Igor Kovalenko)

Men from Jalalabad pray at the site of a planned monument to the victims. (Photo: Igor Kovalenko)

Security was tight in Osh to prevent emotions spilling over. (Photo: Igor Kovalenko)

A son helps his father rebuild in Sharq, a mainly Uzbek area on the northeast outskirts of Osh. Sharq was one of the areas that suffered most damage in the fighting. (Photo: Igor Kovalenko)

Sharq is a typical Uzbek neighbourhood of one-storey houses in gated compounds. Some are still lived in, others abandoned by residents who fled the bloodshed. (Photo: Igor Kovalenko)

Residents of Jiydalik, another Uzbek district, are rebuilding their brick-built houses with help from the international NGO ACTED. (Photo: Pavel Gromsky)

Children playing by a badly damaged house in Sharq. Few young people venture out of their own neighbourhoods these days. (Photo: Igor Kovalenko)

The municipal authorities have been racing to build apartment blocks, though not everyone assigned a flat is keen to live alongside other ethnic groups. (Photo: Pavel Gromsky)

A medical clinic in the north of Osh that was smashed and then torched in the course of the violence. The minaret on the corner belongs to a mosque that forms part of the same building. Both it and the clinic are now under restoration. (Photo: Pavel Gromsky)

The central building of Osh’s biggest market was damaged in the violence, but many street traders are back at their stalls. The market is one place where shoppers and traders from a variety of ethnic backgrounds congregate. (Photo: Pavel Gromsky)

Several days of bloodshed in southern Kyrgyzstan last June left over 400 people dead, and created an atmosphere of mistrust that will be harder to repair than the visible effects of arson and wanton destruction of buildings.

A semblance of normality has returned to Osh and Jalalabad, the focal points of the ethnic violence. Aid money is helping restore homes destroyed in deliberately targeted attacks, and the municipal authorities are putting up new apartment blocks to house those who were displaced.

The sense of fear that lingered for months after the violence is no longer apparent, but the Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities have reshaped their lives in ways that tend to reinforce rather than reduce separation. People stay at home in the evening rather than go for a stroll through town, and youngsters stick to their own neighbourhoods.

The bustling open-air markets provide one of the few environments where large numbers of people from different parts of town mingle and trade freely.

In national and local politics, there are few unqualified messages coming out in support of bridge-building and reconciliation. On June 10, the authorities came together to commemorate the first anniversary of the outbreak of violence. But with a presidential election scheduled for October, nationalism is likely to offer a potent and easily-accessible instrument for winning voters.

(For a report on the mood in the south, see Conflict Legacy Haunts South Kyrgyzstan.)

Locations Kyrgyzstan