Andijan is turning into a cemetery. The BBC reports 500 dead [translated by me]It looks at first glance like they are intentionally misreading the BBC report from which I posted excerpts here. Maybe they have a hard time translating from English. Given the time-stamp, they probably saw an earlier BBC report than the one I saw, but I don't think the BBC would have published, then omitted, the part about people digging graves in the city. And I don't think the BBC would have earlier reported only one figure of 500 dead and then several other figures, although I could be wrong about that. It's also possible that the folks running Ferghana.ru are intentionally sensationalizing the news in order to drive up their site traffic - after all, were interested enough to publish an article yesterday on the uprising-related spike in traffic on their and other websites. And we know they're not a big operation, so maybe they are doing this as a type of self-promotion. Or, of course, it's possible that they have exclusive sources.
Information Agency Ferghana.Ru, BBC, 15.05.2005 11:29
Roughly 500 bodies of people killed in the storm of rebels in Andijan are lying in the building of Andijan School #15. The school is extremely well guarded. The only people being admitted are relatives who are identifying bodies. According to reports from Andijan, people have begun digging graves right in the middle of city squares and parks in order to bury dead bodies which have not been retrieved by relatives, reports the BBC.
Meanwhile, the official authorities have reported only on the number of deaths among law enforcement officials - 10 people.
Given the history of violent unrest in the Ferghana Valley region, though, it's pretty irresponsible to report things as inflammatory as this without proper sourcing, and if they do have an independent source for the grave-digging part of the story, you'd think they would mention it.
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