Guns, Rape and Rockets — All Tools of War in Kyrgyzstan

War is often fought along ethnic lines. In Bosnia, it was the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks, all fighting one another. In Sudan, it's the Janjaweed against the Sudanese Liberation Movement. Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis. Fights along ethnic lines continue in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now in Kyrgyzstan.

In Kyrgyzstan, the battle lines have been drawn between ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz groups. In the past week, thousands of people have been killed and approximately 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks, or one-twelfth of the country's population, have been forced to flee their homes.

In Osh, Kyrgyzstan you can hear the constant crackle of gunfire. The air is heavy with soot and smoke as entire Uzbek neighborhoods are burned to the ground. Mothers are carrying around pictures of their children that are missing; food and water are scarce.

For those that decide to flee (usually with nothing but the clothes on their back) there are thousands waiting at the fence on the boarder of Uzbekistan. Desperate pleas usually go unheard by the border guards on the other side of the fence. Approximately 100,000 have made it into the three refugee camps that Uzbekistan has established along the border.

Entire families are hiding in basements with not enough food or water. Every noise and every footstep brings terror to the huddled families because every footstep might bring the Kyrgyz gangs one step closer to discovering the family in hiding. Upon discovery, the family members could be killed, raped and tortured.

There have been reports of ethnic Uzbek men having boiling water poured over their genitals and throats being slashed from ear to ear.

And as with all the ethnic conflicts, rape is being used as a tool of ethnic cleansing in Kyrgyzstan. Human Rights Watch says it is difficult to put a number on how many women have been raped so far, but reports have been flooding in at a disturbing rate.

In Osh, on one single street alone, it was reported that Kyrgyz men had beaten and raped ten Uzbek women.

The city of Osh is rampant with violence. Pregnant women have been gang raped. Girls, as young as twelve, are being beaten and raped in broad daylight. Two Uzbek sisters were taken into a café where they were separated from one another. A Kyrgyz street gang raped the sisters and used their cell phones to videotape the rape. The gang laughed and cheered as they took turns raping the two girls.

History should be our guide in Kyrgyzstan. In Bosnia, the international community allowed the spread of ethnic violence and genocide to continue for four years before they stepped in. In those four years, 250,000 died and millions were displaced. As part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in Bosnia, women were raped so often and so violently, often to the point of unconsciousness or death.

In Rwanda, between 250,000 and 500,000 women and girls were raped before the violence ended. Thousands of women and children have been raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a conflict that still rages today.

The violence in Kyrgyzstan needs to be stopped now, before another person dies, or loses their home, or is raped. Ethnic hatred is a war that has no winner.

Photo credit: UN Photo/EPA