UNICEF now estimates that 80,000 ethnic Uzbeks—the vast majority women and children—have fled Kyrgyzstan for Uzbekistan since violence broke out earlier this month. Over 400,000 refugees have been displaced since the ethnic rioting began, creating one of the worst refugee crises in the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The provisional Kyrgyz government has been loath in its response to the crisis. Relatively weak, the interim government has been preoccupied with trying to regain regain its footing the southern part of the country since Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced from office in the Spring, throwing the nation into turmoil. Many of the Uzbeks, who are Kyrgyz citizens, say that have been targeted by Kyrgyzstan's military. Members of the provisional government blame Bakiyev for inciting the violence.

Clifford Levy, Moscow bureau chief for our partner, The New York Times, is reporting from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He says that though Uzbeks make up only about fifteen percent of the population of Kyrgyzstan, they tend to make up the wealthier merchant class in the south of the country. This conflict traces back to a hundreds of years old dispute over who occupied the land first, the Uzbeks or the Kyrgyz. Levy gives us the latest from on the ground in the region and discusses the difficulties of reporting the story.