Kyrgyzstan | featured news

Kyrgyzstan will vote Sunday to create the first parliamentary democracy in Central Asia, in an election its interim leaders hope can unite the country only four months after the worst bloodshed in its modern history.

Kyrgyzstan is asking for $1bn in aid at a donor conference in Bishkek set to be dominated by debate over rebuilding Osh.

Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva is inaugurated as president of troubled Kyrgyzstan, weeks after hundreds died during ethnic violence, state media reports.

The interim leaders of Kyrgyzstan said voters approved a new constitution Sunday that will allow the Central Asian nation to form a legitimate government after months of turmoil.

President Roza Otunbayeva called the referendum a success, saying it took place without incident and paved the way for holding parliamentary elections in October. The vote came just weeks after rampages against minority Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan killed as many as 2,000 people and forced 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks to temporarily flee.

Polls opened in violence-wracked Kyrgyzstan for a referendum Sunday to choose a new constitution that the interim government hopes will legitimize its power until new parliamentary elections in October.

An estimated one million people have been affected by the violent conflict in Kyrgyzstan and need food and other aid supplies, U.N. officials said on Friday.

The U.N. number is a dramatic increase over the official estimate of a crisis that has left throng refugees without enough food and water in camps along the Uzbek border.

Kyrgyzstan's worst outbreak of violence since the president was overthrown in April raged for a second day on Saturday and officials said the death toll in the ethnic conflict had risen to at least 49.

Kyrgyzstan's interim rulers sent troops on Tuesday to quell ethnic violence that has threatened their fragile grip on the Central Asian state after the overthrow of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

The ousted Kyrgyz president is willing to resign if he and his relatives are allowed safe passage out of the country, according to sources in southern Kyrgyzstan.