About 3,000 mourners gathered on the edge of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on Saturday at a mass funeral to commemorate at least 79 people who died in protests on Wednesday. The Kyrgyz interim government undertakes to be liable for all expenses associated with the mass funeral.
Mourners carried coffins draped in the red-and-yellow Kyrgyz national flag and clutched portraits of the dead at a memorial complex built in honour of the victims of mass executions ordered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin in the 1930s.
Relatives lowered bodies into 16 graves lined in rows and joined hands in prayer, while mullahs chanted in Arabic.
During last Wednesday`s clashes government troops had opened fire on demonstrators outside the presidential building.
