Opposition leaders in Kyrgyzstan announced today that they had taken control of the government.
Yesterday in the event, 100 people dead and hundreds wounded.
They demanded the resignation of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who has fled to the city of Osh, in his southern heartland after demonstrators set fire to government buildings and fought running battles with riot police in the capital Bishkek.
The opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said that she would head a caretaker government for six months until new elections could be called under a revised constitution. The former foreign minister, who had helped to bring Mr Bakiyev to power after the 2005 “Tulip revolution”, was due to address parliament today.
In a radio broadcast Ms Otunbayeva called for calm in the aftermath of yesterday’s deadly street clashes.
Ms Otunbayeva said: “Hard changes are upon us, authority has passed into the people’s hands, and in some places it was done by force,”
“We ask you not to give in to provocations, or to destroy and loot the property of ordinary citizens. Some of us were killed and wounded, and we must do everything in our power to help them,” Ms Otunbayeva added.
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