Pakistan Evacuates Students Following Bishkek Attacks On Foreigners

Kyrgyz Deputy Foreign Minister Avazbek Atakhanov held talks on May 19 in the Kyrgyz capital with Hassan Ali Zaigham, Pakistan's ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.

Atakhanov said the situation was under control and added that Kyrgyz authorities had launched a probe into the incident, allegedly sparked by an unclear dispute days earlier involving migrants.

Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Edil Baisalov and Ali Zaigham visited the hostel where most of the violence took place and met with international students. Baisalov apologized on behalf of the Kyrgyz government and the Kyrgyz people for failing to protect the students.

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials said a planned visit to Bishkek by a Pakistani delegation, including Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, had been canceled after Kyrgyz officials had assured them the situation was now calm.

About 140 students and 40 other Pakistanis flew out of Bishkek late on May 18. The students were received by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi at Lahore International Airport, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal.

The Pakistani Embassy in Bishkek informed Radio Azattyk on May 19 that special flights have been arranged to repatriate Pakistani students for the next few days.

A Pakistani student told Radio Mashaal he had spent the night at Bishkek's international airport waiting to fly out.

"Our university arranged transport last night.... There were three vans…. We were brought to the airport and here we are completely safe. Our flight is scheduled for today. It is a direct flight from Bishkek to Islamabad. We spent the night without any trouble and there was no attack," Hasnain Ali, a student of medicine at Ala-Too International University in Bishkek, told Radio Mashaal.

Another described how foreign students were being told not to venture outside.

"We are also getting messages from the university that things are normal, but one can't believe it. It is not fully normal because they are asking us that if you want to go out, do it only in groups of three or four, but not alone. We are restricted to our hostel," explained Syed Shah Rukh Khan.

RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service also spoke with people at the VIP Hostel in Bishkek, which was the epicenter of the mob attacks.

"The students who are here only came to study. And now the students are really scared. I know that no country is bad. But, thanks to some bad people and their behavior, the students are scared. They are someone's children. They came here only to study, and they [the mob] came in and beat them," said Ahmed Faiz, a student from Pakistan at Kyrgyzstan's International University.

Ahmed Umer, another Pakistani student at Kyrgyzstan's International University, described some of the violence at the hostel.

"Some locals went into our hostel, and they harassed women. Also, they broke windows, everything. They stole things from us," he told RFE/RL.

Sajjad Ahmad, head of the VIP Hostel, said faculty from Kyryzstan's International University were helping students cope with the aftermath.

"They have been sleeping here since yesterday. They have been calming down the students. Now, the students are calm.... Of course, the situation is scary. They will now head home. We are [arranging] plane tickets and flights," Ahmad said.

An estimated 500 people live at the hostel, and Ahmad said all of them were expected to leave.

"They didn't expect such a thing to happen here. The atmosphere was very good in Kyrgyzstan. Now they are saying that they urgently need to [leave]," Ahmad told RFE/RL, adding that their course work would continue online.

"Let's see if they come back. Then they will continue their education here," he said.

Meanwhile, three foreign nationals injured in the unrest in Bishkek remain in a stable condition on May 19, according to Health Ministry spokesman Jyldyz Aigerchinova, who spoke to RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.

The Health Ministry said on May 18 that 15 of the 29 people injured had been taken to the Bishkek City Emergency Hospital and the National Hospital and the rest were treated on the spot.

The Kyrgyz government said earlier that four foreign nationals born between 1993 and 2003 had been arrested following the violence. It said they were placed in a temporary detention facility as part of a criminal case for hooliganism without stating their nationalities or the circumstances of their arrests.

Those found guilty will be punished, the Kyrgyz government said in a statement, rejecting what it said were "insinuations aimed at inciting intolerance toward foreign students." But it appeared to lay the blame for the violence on illegal migrants, saying authorities had been taking "decisive measures to suppress illegal migration and expel undesirable persons from Kyrgyzstan."

The Kyrgyz Interior Ministry said in a statement on May 18 that the violence was triggered by the appearance on social media of a video purportedly showing a group of "persons of Asian appearance" harassing foreign students on the night of May 13 and then pursuing them to their dormitory, where at least one foreign student was assaulted by several men and dragged on the floor.