UNHCR chief visits southern Kyrgyzstan, says further help needed

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, June 30 (UNHCR) - UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres today visited southern Kyrgyzstan and appealed to the international community not to turn its attentions away from the tens of thousands of people still faced with having to rebuild lives and overcome trauma following the violence there in mid-June.

Speaking to journalists at a site for returned refugees and other displaced people in the town of Osh, Guterres spoke of the difficulties for those left homeless or living in fear of further unrest.

"The world was taken by surprise with Kyrgyzstan, we must not be taken by surprise again," he said. "Entire communities here have been left fractured and embittered. Immediate and sustained humanitarian help is needed to avert a dangerous expansion of grievance and loss."

Since mid June, and with some tens of thousands of people having been displaced inside Kyrgyzstan as well as across the border into Uzbekistan, UNHCR has rushed hundreds of tonnes of emergency relief into the two countries in a series of massive air shipments from Dubai.

With refugees having since returned to Kyrgyzstan the focus of help has now shifted to the displaced populations in and around Osh and nearby Jalalabad.

On Wednesday in Osh, High Commissioner Guterres received the first convoy of some 20 trucks at the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border carrying UN aid materials into Kyrgyzstan from Uzbekistan, where they are no longer needed.

Guterres has been visiting Kyrgyzstan to see for himself the conditions on the ground for the many thousands of people who have been displaced by the violence. As well as traveling to Osh on Wednesday he met government officials including President Roza Otunbayeva. On Thursday he's expected to visit other towns in the south.