OSH, Kyrgyzstan,  (Reuters) – Russia sent at least 150  paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan yesterday to protect its military  facilities as ethnic clashes spread in the Central Asian state,  bringing the death toll from days of fighting to 113.

Ethnic Uzbeks in a besieged neighbourhood of Kyrgyzstan’s  second city Osh said gangs were carrying out “genocide”, burning  residents out of their homes and shooting them as they fled.  Witnesses saw bodies lying on the streets.

“God help us! They are killing Uzbeks like animals. Almost  the whole city is in flames,” Dilmurad Ishanov, an ethnic Uzbek  human rights worker, told Reuters by telephone from Osh.

Rights activists said the authorities were failing to stop  the violence, and occasionally joining in.

“Residents are calling us and saying soldiers are firing at  them. There’s an order to shoot the marauders, but they aren’t  shooting them,” said ex-parliamentary deputy Alisher Sabirov, a  peacekeeping volunteer in Osh.