In Uzbekistan, Families Caught In a Nightmare

Dwindling in size, the group decided to make a break for the Kyrgyz border, more than 12 hours' walk northward. The survivors received no help until they approached the border town of Dishekdash, when a man suddenly stepped out of the shadows.

"Don't go this way," he whispered, a refugee recalled. "There are troops waiting for you here. Go that way," he said, pointing to a narrow road flanked by houses.

In retrospect, many refugees believe it was a trap, because as they raced down the passageway, Uzbek security officers suddenly popped up from a rooftop and began firing down on them. It was here that Karimova's father was hit and Ali disappeared.

The group rushed backward, then paused for several hours on a byroad not far from the border, unsure where to go next. A few hours later, Uzbek ambulances appeared and took away most of the wounded. Many survivors, including the Karimovs, now fear that this too was a ruse.

"We think those who went in the ambulances were all killed," Abdulsalam Karimov said.

Finally, about 10 o'clock, a local woman came to them with a message from the Uzbek customs guards keeping watch over a river bridge at the border. If the refugees wanted to ford the river, the guards would not fire on them. The people crossed to safety.

Mavlanov recalled breaking down in tears on reaching his home country. "I thought I was going to die. The only question was of wishing for a less painful death," he said. "Maybe a bullet to the head."

About 10 miles south of the refugee camp, in the Uzbek town of Kara-Suu, residents on Tuesday tried to make sense of recent events. Like several other cities in Uzbekistan's Fergana region, this eastern border town erupted in demonstrations after the bloody crackdown in Andijon. Residents set fire to the police station and other buildings in Kara-Suu on Saturday.

Many were belatedly protesting the central government's decision several years ago to destroy a bridge that had allowed the town's traders to export goods to their sister town across the river in Kyrgyzstan.

But there was no massacre in Kara-Suu, a sprawling city of one-story houses and large Soviet-era public buildings shaded by tall trees. Police and other central government officials simply fled, leaving the town to its own devices.

On Tuesday, residents seemed caught between exuberance over newfound freedom and fear that the government might crack down. In place of the destroyed bridge, a group of welders had already built a footbridge leading over the fast-moving river. The welders were now at work enlarging it, as traders strolled by with vegetables and other items.

Jerome Bouyjou, a human rights officer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who had arrived to investigate the situation, watched them pass with a frown. It's hard to say when the Uzbek authorities will come back, he said. "But they are not going to leave things like this."

Many city residents agreed. "Everything is possible," said a 59-year-old former store manager who is now unemployed. "We don't know what to expect." Like many residents, he would not give his name, out of concern that "it could create problems for me."

Over the border in the tent camp, the Karimovs also struggled with uncertainty as they anguished over their son and Karimova's father. With nothing else to do, Karimova was trying to clean the blood off her beige dress, the same one she wore to the demonstration and has worn ever since. "Look," she said, pointing to several stains. "I've been washing and washing, but the blood won't come out."