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February 10, 2020Violent inter-ethnic clashes between Kazakhs and Dungans broke out in the night of 7 to 8 February in the Žambyl region, located in the southeastern part of the country on the border with Kyrgyzstan. The toll is very heavy: 10 dead, 170 injured, including 43 hospitalized in local hospitals, 25 private houses, 31 shops and 41 cars destroyed or burned. The Dungans are a population of Chinese ethnicity and Muslim religion, who moved to Central Asia in the late nineteenth century due to the persecution of the Chinese authorities.
Initially the clashes broke out in the village of Masanci, but then they affected other nearby villages, with a prevalent Dungan population. The Kazakh government sent soldiers to the scene who seized 2 hunting rifles, 2 pistols and 54 Molotov cocktails. 25 criminal investigations have been opened with the hypothesis of mass disorder, murder, resistance to public officials. Migration of the population has been noted both to neighboring Kyrgyzstan and from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan. According to the police version, the conflict would have been trivial: one of the villagers would not have stopped at the traffic police alt. Chased and arrived home, he would have called neighbors and relatives who attacked and beaten the policemen.
Local sources say some Dungans brutally beat an 80-year-old Kazakh elder. After that, the Kazakhs would attack the predominantly Dungan villages. It should be noted that in the area of the clashes the Dungan population is equal to 90% of residents, while the Kazakhs and the Russians are 5% each. The situation remains tense.