OSH, Kyrgyzstan (AP) -- Some 100,000 minority Uzbeks fleeing a purge by mobs of Kyrgyz massed at the border Monday, an Uzbek leader said, as the deadliest ethnic violence to hit this Central Asian nation in decades left a major city smoldering. With fires raging in the southern city of Osh for a fourth day Monday, the official death toll of 124 killed and nearly 1,500 injured from the clashes that began Thursday appeared way too low. An Uzbek community leader claimed at least 200 Uzbeks alone had already been buried, and the Red Cross said its delegates saw about 100 bodies being buried in just one cemetery. The United States, Russia and the United Nations worked on humanitarian aid airlifts while neighboring Uzbekistan hastily set up camps to handle the flood of hungry, frightened refugees. Most were women, children and the elderly, many of whom Uzbekistan said had gunshot wounds.
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An Uzbek woman named Matluba, center, who said she fled from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh after her family was killed, weeps as she stands in line in no-man's-land near the Uzbek village of Jalal-Kuduk waiting for permission to cross into Uzbekistan, Monday, June 14, 2010. AP / Anvar Ilyasov
An Ethnic Uzbek holds his head in his hands as he stands beside the wreckage of his burned out home in Osh on June 14, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Victor Drachev
An Ethnic Uzbek woman cries as she stands beside the wreckage of her burned out home in Osh on June 14, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Victor Drachev
Ethnic Uzbeks walk beside the wreckage of burned houses in Osh on June 14, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Oxana Onipko
An Ethnik Uzbek man injured in ethnic violence rests in an Uzbek neighbourhood in Osh on June 14, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Victor Drachev
An Uzbek man who fled from Kyrgyzstan shows his slingshot he says that he used against attackers as he waits for permission to cross into Uzbekistan, near the Uzbek village of Jalal-Kuduk Monday, June 14, 2010. AP / Anvar Ilyasov
Uzbek refugees who fled from Kyrgyzstan rest on a bed in a refugee camp on the border near the Uzbek village of Jalal-Kuduk, Monday, June 14, 2010. Some 100,000 minority Uzbeks fleeing a purge by mobs of Kyrgyz massed at the border Monday, an Uzbek leader said, as the deadliest ethnic violence to hit this Central Asian nation in decades left a major city smoldering. AP / Anvar Ilyasov
A wounded Uzbek man who fled from Kyrgyzstan is helped to walk toward a line of refugees in no-man's-land near the Uzbek village of Jalal-Kuduk, Monday, June 14, 2010. AP / Anvar Ilyasov
Uzbek emergency workers and volunteers pass traditional flat bread to ethnic Uzbek refugees from Kyrgyzstan near the Uzbek village of Jalal-Kuduk, Monday, June 14, 2010. AP / Anvar Ilyasov
Ethnik Uzbek rest after they crossed the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as they fled from the southern part of Kyrgyzstan, on June 13, 2010. The village of Yorkishlok close to the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border was flooded with more than 32,000 refugees, most of them women and children, uneasily settled in three makeshift camps, regional Uzbek emergency officials said. But the true number of ethnic Uzbek refugees is more than 80,000, an unnamed police official said, explaining that child refugees, who numbered in the thousands, were not being registered. AFP / Getty Images
Ethnic Uzbeks cross the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as they flee from the southern part of Kyrgyzstan, on June 13, 2010. AFP / Getty Images
Ethnic Uzbeks cross the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistsan outside Yorkishlok on June 13, 2010. AFP / Getty Images
An Ethnic Uzbek women is seen at the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistsan outside Yorkishlok on June 13, 2010. AFP / Getty Images
Ethnic Uzbeks cross through the border zone from southern Kyrgyzstan into Uzbekistan in the vicinity of Osh on June 12, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Oleg Nekrasov
Ethnic Uzbeks cross through the border zone from southern Kyrgyzstan into Uzbekistan in the vicinity of Osh on June 12, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Oleg Nekrasov
Ethnic Uzbeks cross through the border zone from southern Kyrgyzstan into Uzbekistan in the vicinity of Osh on June 12, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Oleg Nekrasov
Ethnic Uzbeks gather near the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border in southern Kyrgyzstan, on Saturday, June 12, 2010, trying to seek refuge in Uzbekistan from mobs of Kyrgyz men attacking the minority Uzbek community. AP / D. Dalton Bennett
Uzbekistan's soldiers and security officers assist ethnic Uzbeks, fleeing southern Kyrgyzstan, to cross the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border after mobs of Kyrgyz men attack the minority Uzbek community, on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border Saturday, June 12, 2010. AP / D. Dalton Bennett
Ethnic Uzbek gather near the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border in southern Kyrgyzstan, on Saturday, June 12, 2010, trying to seek refuge in Uzbekistan from mobs of Kyrgyz men attacking the minority Uzbek community. AP / D. Dalton Bennett
A boy, an Ethnic Uzbek reportedly shot by the Kyrgyz security service during recent clashes, seen in a hospital in the village of Naramon, near Osh airport, southern Kyrgyzstan, on Saturday, June 12, 2010. AP / D. Dalton Bennett
Ethnic Uzbeks try to extinguish fire in their burning house, torched by Kyrgyz men, in Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan, Sunday, June 13, 2010. Kyrgyz mobs burned Uzbek villages and slaughtered their residents Sunday as ethnic rioting engulfed new areas in southern Kyrgyzstan. The government ordered troops to shoot rioters dead but even that failed to stop the spiraling violence. AP / Zarip Toroyev
An ethnic Uzbek tries to extinguish a fire with water from a garden hose at a burning residence, which was allegedly torched by Kyrgyz men, Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan, Sunday, June 13, 2010. AP / Zarip Toroyev
Members of ethnic Uzbek community armed with sticks and Molotov cocktails to protect their lives and property look at smoke rising from the burning Uzbek villages set on fire by the Kyrgyz attackers near Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, on Saturday, June 12, 2010. AP / D. Dalton Bennett
Members of ethnic Uzbek community armed with sticks and and hunting rifles to protect their lives and property guard an road to a Uzbek residence near Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, on Saturday, June 12, 2010. AP / D. Dalton Bennett
Kyrgyz soldiers on an armoured vehicle drive past a group of people in Osh on June 11, 2010. AFP / Getty Images
Ethnic Uzbeks who lived in south Kyrgyzstan stand during meeting in front of the government building in Moscow as they ask Russia to step in situation in southern Kyrgyzstan on June 11, 2010. AFP / Getty Images / Andrey Smirnov
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