GENEVA: UN investigators accused Uzbekistan on Tuesday of using indiscriminate force in a May crackdown in the town of Andizhan, which they said may have killed hundreds more than the official death toll of 176 people.

“Events in Andizhan between 12 and 14 May 2005 resulted in the deaths of between 176 and possibly several hundred more men, women and children,” they said in a report.

“The armed and security forces seem to have used force in an indiscriminate and disproportionate manner and went significantly beyond self-defence or any legitimate intent to re-establish law and order,” the report added.

Witnesses said at the time that more than 500 people were killed by troops putting down a popular protest in the eastern town against the trial of 23 local businessmen and against the dictatorial rule of President Islam Karimov.

Uzbek officials say 176 people died in a police operation against “terrorists” in the town, which lies in the fertile Ferghana Valley.

The 24-page report by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour renewed a call for an international inquiry, a demand already rejected by Uzbekistan.

The investigators based their report on interviews with Uzbeks who had fled across the border into neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.

“In the view of those interviewed, the actions of the armed and security forces were taken less with the intent of establishing law and order and re-arresting the prisoners ... than with the aim of killing as many people as possible, including women and children,” it said.

US-based group Human Rights Watch, which last month drew up its own report accusing the Uzbek leadership of trying to cover up a massacre in Andizhan, urged the Security Council to take up the UN report.

The May 13 protest was linked to the businessmen’s trial, widely perceived as unfair, according to the UN investigators. Six of the businessmen, among 450 Uzbeks who fled to Kyrgyzstan, told them they had been abused and forced to sign confessions.

The night before the protest, the local prison was overrun, inmates freed and the regional administration building seized — but many questions remain unanswered, according to the report.

Some people received anonymous phone calls to go to the town’s main square. Despite the prison breakout and roadblocks, security officers did not warn people to avoid the area amid rumours Karimov was coming to address concerns, the report said.

After repeated shootings by security forces, protesters took hostage dozens of security forces and authorities, whom they put in front of the crowd, according to the UN report.—Reuters