A senior Kyrgyz official said on Monday that Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands had agreed to take 11 of 15 remaining Uzbek refugees in time to avoid sending them back to their authoritarian Central Asian homeland.
"Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden are ready to accept those 11 people who have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)," Vyacheslav Khan, deputy secretary of the presidential Security Council, told Reuters.
Nearly 500 people fled Uzbekistan after the government cracked down on a demonstration in the eastern town of Andizhan last May. Witnesses said about 500 people were killed while Uzbekistan insists less than 190 people, mostly "terrorists" were killed.
More than 400 Uzbek refugees, who had refused to return fearing torture and execution in Uzbek prisons, were flown under UN supervision to Romania last month.
But 15, believed by the Kyrgyz authorities to have escaped from jail in Andizhan, have remained in police custody. The UNHCR believes at least 11 of them match the criteria for refugee status.
Kyrgyzstan said on Friday it would send the 15 back to Uzbekistan in 10 days unless a third country offered them asylum.
Khan said he did not know when the 11 people would leave Kyrgyzstan or what would happen to the remaining four.
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