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Situation in Kazakhstan’s Shymkent stabilizing - TV

Utility services have begun to clear the streets after riots

NUR-SULTAN, January 7. /TASS/. The situation in Kazakhstan’s Shymkent is stabilizing, with no mass gatherings seen and no looting cases reported, the Khabat-24 television channel said on Friday, citing the city’s first deputy head, Shyngys Mukan.

Utility services have begun to clear the streets after riots. The television channel cited local authorities as saying that the situation in the city is stabilizing, with no looting cases reported during the day.

"Several government buildings and business facilities have been seriously damaged. The damage is being calculated. Now, the situation ion the city is calm, there is nothing to worry about. We ask people to stay calm," Mukan told Khabar-24.

According to the television channel, the Korme exhibition center, the Kazakh Theatre building, the prosecutor’s office building, and the Turkestan palace were damaged during the riots.

Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2 to grow into mass riots with attacks on government buildings in many cities several days later. Thousands have been injured and fatalities have also been reported. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, a post-Soviet security bloc. CSTO peacekeepers have already been deployed to Kazakhstan. According to the Kazakh authorities, law and order had been restored in all of the country’s regions by the morning on January 7. However, the situation in Almaty is still very tense.