ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan - As dawn crept in, six headscarved women and a man wearing a traditional Uzbek skullcap slowly bent down in prayer before the tomb of their 23-year-old relative killed in clashes rocking this eastern Uzbek city.
"My poor Sherzat, he died so young he wasn't even married," cried Gulchefra, his 40-year-old sister.
"Why him? He did nothing wrong," said Sherzat's aunt, Nadyra, who has come to the cemetery every morning at dawn, as dictated by Muslim tradition. "We're scared, it's a real war."
The city continued to be marred by sporadic gunfire overnight Tuesday, while a Russian newspaper quoted an Uzbek opposition group as saying at least 745 people died as a result of the military crackdown.
Sherzat's family blamed authorities for letting the youth, shot as clashes broke out on Friday, bleed to death.
A friend of young man, who also took part in Friday's demonstration, reached the family at dawn Saturday to warn them that Sherzat was injured and was being kept in one of the city's schools.
"We rushed there, we wanted to bring an ambulance to take him to hospital. It was 7 am," recounted Nadyra.
"The soldiers didn't let us into the school. They screamed, 'we will kill you.' Neither could the ambulances circulate," she added.
Three hours later, Nadyra and Gulchefra were allowed into the school to find Sherzat lying in a pool of blood among "hundreds of other bodies or body parts."
"He was dead. His face was covered with a white sheet. Blood was pouring like water," said Gulchefra, bursting into tears. "We could have saved him."
"It was horrible. There were the bodies of pregnant women, of old people, of six or seven-year-old children who had probably gone out for bread when they were shot," said Nadyra.
"Some bodies were missing an arm or a foot. Trousers and socks were strewn beside the bodies," she added.
Outside the school, the two women said they saw soldiers charging bodies on to two trucks.
"They were treating them like garbage," Nadyra said.
The two women, accompanied by three male relatives, were finally allowed to take Sherzat's body home in a collective taxi.
Gulbahor Turdiyeva, the head of the Uzbek Animokur NGO group, said Monday 500 bodies had been stored in the school.
The bloodshed in Andijan started early Friday, when supporters of 23 local businessmen on trial for alleged links to an outlawed Islamic group stormed a local prison and freed them, along with some 2,000 other prisoners.
Troops moved against the anti-government rally that ensued and opened fire into the crowds.
05/17/2005 11:52 GMT