BISHKEK, July 27 (AFP) - More than 400 Uzbeks who fled to neighbouring Kyrgyzstan after a bloody crackdown in Uzbekistan will be sent to a third country and not back to Uzbekistan as the authoritarian government there wanted, officials said Wednesday.

"According to my information, they will leave for Romania," Kyrgyz Prosecutor General Azimbek Beknazarov told AFP.

About 150 of the approximately 426 Uzbek refugees in Kyrgyzstan could be seen at the airport outside the capital Bishkek. They were waiting for others.

The refugees fled Uzbekistan after the suppression of a May 13 uprising in the city of Andijan in what witnesses and human rights groups said was a massacre.

Rights groups say 500 to 1,000 people were killed by government troops, while the hardline Uzbek government says the toll was 187 and blames the violence on Islamic militants.

The Uzbek authorities said that 231 of the fugitives were in fact terrorists and wanted them returned, prompting a strong protest from the United Nations and human rights groups.

Currently 29 Uzbek nationals are being held in a prison in the south of Kyrgyzstan. Recently elected President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said last week that 12 may be sent back to Uzbekistan.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France-Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 07/27/2005 07:03:22