News

Due to the humanitarian crisis in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will allocate 50 thousand Litas (14.5 thousand euros) of aid for refugees in these countries.

The funds will be allocated from the Development Cooperation and Democracy Promotion Programme of Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The funds will be transferred into the account of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Lithuania along with other European Union member states and the international community voice concern over violence and confrontation in Kyrgyzstan’s southern Osh and Jalal-Abad provinces, where the number of victims reaches 187 and about 2 thousand people are injured.

According to the data of the UN agencies, about 100 thousand refugees from Kyrgyzstan, most of them women and children, fled across the border to Uzbekistan. Approximately 300 thousand more were forced to leave their homes in the country.

On 14 June, the EU Foreign Affairs Council discussed the situation in Kyrgyzstan and Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis called on the EU to provide urgent humanitarian aid and urged to take the necessary decisions.

Lithuania holds this issue important also as a forthcoming Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Lithuania and the previous Greek OSCE Chairmanship work together with Kazakhstan’s Chairmanship in the OSCE Troika.

Currently, representatives from the EU, Kazakhstan’s Chairmanship of the OSCE and UN are in Kyrgyzstan.

On 15 June, the European Commission decided to allocate aid worth 5 million euros to Kyrgyzstan, it will be distributed through local non-governmental organizations and the UN agencies that are already working there. The U.S.A. intends to allocate aid worth about 32 million U.S. dollars to Kyrgyzstan. China, Russia, Turkey and other countries have also been sending aid to Kyrgyzstan.