NUR-SULTAN, January 6. /TASS/. Kazakhstan’s law enforcement agencies detained during raids in Almaty nearly 2,000 participants of mass riots, the republic’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
"Employees of the Almaty police department have launched a mop-up operation in the streets of Karasay-batyr and Masanchi. Measures are being taken to detain the violators. In total, some 2,000 people have been taken to police stations," the statement said.
According to the Interior Ministry, the situation in the Kostanay Region, in northern Kazakhstan, is stable. "Public order was restored at night. As a result of illegal steps carried out by a group of individuals one police officer was hurt. A Molotov cocktail was seized at the scene. In addition, a rubber-bullet handgun was seized from one person," the press service said.
Protests flared up in several cities of Kazakhstan on January 2. Later they erupted in other cities, including in Almaty, and on January 5 snowballed into mass riots and violence, along with looting and attacks on state buildings. As a result, more than 1,000 people were hurt and deaths have been reported.
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has imposed a two-week state of emergency across the country and has requested assistance of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a post-Soviet security bloc. The first units of peacekeepers have started fulfilling their assigned tasks in Kazakhstan.