NAMANGAN (Uzbekistan), May 15: At least 600 people were killed in a military crackdown following protests in the Uzbek city of Andijan, the head of a local non-governmental organization who saw the bodies, said on Sunday. Five hundred bodies lay stored on Saturday in one of the eastern city’s schools, said the head of the Animokur organisation, Gulbahor Turdiyeva.

Another 100 were packed in a nearby construction college, he added in a telephone interview. The bloodshed started early on Friday, when weeks-long demonstrations over a trial of 23 local businessmen boiled over. Prosecutors had accused the men of belonging to an outlawed Islamic group, but their supporters said the charges were fabricated.—AFP