![](https://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/2010/0628-weekly/0628-okyr-kyrgyzstan-unrest-genocide/8157022-1-eng-US/0628-OKYR-kyrgyzstan-unrest-genocide_full_380.jpg)
Two Uzbek refugees from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh wait for permission to cross into Uzbekistan at the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border. Recent ethnic violence displaced 200,000 people. Sergei Grits/AP
A wave of brutal ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, which officials now admit killed as many as 2,000 people, threatens to turn the mountainous Central Asian nation of 5 million into a failed state. A failed Kyrgyztan could destabilize its neighborhood, offer a target for the region’s Islamist radicals, and provide a haven for narcotraffickers working the opium pipeline from Afghanistan, experts warn.