Tashkent, July 4 (Bureau) Thousands of people were injured during unrest in Uzbekistan’s region of Karakalpakstan, BBC reported on Monday. The region’s health minister said hospitals in the regional capital, Nukus, are treating patients for injuries.. People were injured after clashes broke out between the protesters and the security forces when they took to the streets over plans to withdraw the territory’s right to secede.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said the plans will not be carried out, while later accusing what he called malicious forces of trying to destabilise and undermine the situation in the Central Asian state. He accused the organisers of the protest of trying to “seize the buildings of local government bodies” in order to obtain weapons. Uzbekistan has a reputation for being one of the most repressive republics of the former Soviet Union, clamping down on any form of dissent.
Karakalpakstan, a mostly desert region near the Aral Sea of just under two million people in a country of 32 million, has autonomous status. Reports said that police and the army are patrolling the streets of Nukus, after the state of emergency was declared. An exiled opposition politician, Pulat Ahunov, said people were unable to move around and obtain information because of the state of emergency, adding that he feared the potential for the situation to escalate into an ethnic conflict between Uzbeks and Karakalpaks, a minority group with their own language.