The Kazakh interior ministry has resorted to army units and armored vehicles to subdue the mass riots in the oil city Zhanaozen, RT reports. Police arrested some 70 people over the violent uprising, which left at least 10 people dead and more than 70 injured.
The troops to contain a thousand-strong riot were deployed from the army base in the neighboring city of Aktau.
Meanwhile in Aktau another rally was taking place in support of the Zhanaozen activists, according to unconfirmed reports.
There are conflicting reports on how the riots in the oil city Zhanaozen in western Kazakhstan started. General Prosecutor Askhat Daulbaev said at an emergency media briefing that the violence was caused by a group armed with melee weapons, which attacked policemen, so that the officers had to fight back. The criminals, according to him, joint the crowd celebrating crowd marking country’s Independence Day and ignited disorder. An on-site investigation headed by Interior Minister Kalmukhadbet Kasymov is underway.
Initially the authorities seemed to be trying to conceal the fact of the violence, but Kazakhstan’s prosecutor general later admitted that according to preliminary data ten people had died in the Zhanaozen unrest and many more wounded, including police officers.
According to the head of the Kazakh Interior Ministry, Kalmukhanbet Kasymov, the situation in Zhanaozen has now stabilized and the riots have been quelled, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports.
