Even as large-scale rioting continued in Kyrgyzstan for the third day on Sunday, Russia has sidestepped Kyrgyzstan's request for military help, redirecting the plea to the defence bloc of ex-Soviet states.
More than 100 people have been killed and over 1,000 wounded according to local health officials, with Kyrgyz mobs burning Uzbek neighbourhoods and slaughtering their residents in Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second largest city in the country's south. A Pakistani student was killed in Osh and 15 others were held hostage by rioters, according to Pakistani media.
On Sunday violence spread to Jalal-Abad, 60 km from Osh, and other neighbouring towns and villages.
Unconfirmed reports said hundreds have died in violence and tens of thousands fled to neighbouring Uzbekistan.
Interim President Roza Otunbayeva asked Russia for military help on Saturday, but the Kremlin passed on the request to the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), to which both Russia and Kyrgyzstan belong.
The other member-states are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, as the rotating president of the CSTO, called a meeting of the defence bloc's security chiefs on Monday to discuss the crisis.
His spokesperson said Moscow had no legal grounds to intervene in Kyrgyzstan's internal conflict, and it was up to the CSTO to take such a decision.
Mr. Medvedev over the weekend discussed possible responses to the Kyrgyz turmoil on telephone with the Presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Russia sent several transport planes to Kyrgyzstan to deliver humanitarian aid and evacuate those seriously injured. Moscow also reinforced its air base in Kyrgyzstan with a battalion of paratroopers.
The interim government of Kyrgyzstan issued the shoot-to-kill order to the military and ordered partial mobilisation of the armed forces.
By Sunday evening, troops took control of vital facilities in Osh, including its main bakery, to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation, said the government press service .
The curfew in Osh was extended on Sunday to 24 hours, and a state of emergency was clamped on Jalal-Abad, where rioters torched a shopping centre, and auto repair shop and several houses. Violence was also reported in several villages in the area.
The Kyrgyz news agency AKIPress quoted eyewitnesses as saying relatives of the ousted President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, were instigating and directing rampaging mobs in Jalal-Abad.
The Osh police chief told a local TV station that a Bakiyev next of kin by the name Sanjar Bakiyev was actively involved in the unrest.
The interim government accused Mr. Bakiyev of financing and fomenting violence, but the former President issued a statement from his self-imposed exile in Belarus, denying any role and blaming the interim authorities for failing to protect the population.
