Hundreds of Uzbek refugees were gathering at the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border seeking to cross over, Almanbet Matubraimov, the Kyrgyz president's representative in the south, said in the southern city of Osh on Sunday, according to reports from Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan.

Thousands of Uzbeks gathered in the border regions on Saturday, after thousands of armed protesters plunged the city of Andizhan into chaos, releasing prisoners from a prison and engaging in clashes with security forces.

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have closed their borders with Uzbekistan after the riot, according to the local media.

Matubraimov said Kyrgyz border guards and security personnel are carefully checking the Uzbek refugees who have crossed the border and so far no Andizhan rioter has been found among them.

Kyrgyz Border Security Chief M. Subanov went to the border regions and has inspected the Kyrgyz border town of Kara-Su, 50 km east of Andijan, and some border posts there.

On Saturday, thousands had arrived at the Uzbek border region near Kara-Su, seeking to enter Kyrgyzstan.

About 600 Uzbek refugees entered the Jalalabad region of Kyrgyzstan on Saturday, and some of the wounded among them have been sent to local hospitals for treatment.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed a branch of the outlawed radical Hizb ut-Tahrir group on Saturday for the turmoil in the eastern town of Andijan as thousands of Uzbeks sought to flee the Central Asian country.

The Hizb ut-Tahrir group, a banned radical Islamic movement, was also held responsible by the Uzbek government for murdering dozens of people in the country last year.

Ten government troops and many protesters were killed and at least 100 people wounded in the violence, the Uzbek leader said, adding that no one ordered the soldiers to fire on the crowd, referring to the reported death of women and children in the incident.

The authorities had tried to create favorable conditions for negotiations with the rioters, who "were offered transport to leave along their chosen route," but the government could not accept their condition of releasing jailed supporters in various parts of the country, said Karimov.

Hundreds of protesters gathered again on Saturday on the square in Andijan, the fourth-largest city in the former Soviet state, but a Uzbek Interior Ministry spokesman told Russia's Interfax that most of them had left by nightfall.

The Uzbek government said on Friday that the situation in Andijan had been brought under control after thousands of armed protesters set free prisoners from a prison and clashed with security forces.

In a separate development, a suspected suicide bomber was shot dead by security officers posted at the Israeli Embassy in Tashkent on Friday.

The situation in the former Soviet republic sparked wide concern after governments collapsed in three other former Soviet republics -- Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan -- in the past one and a half years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Karimov on the phone Saturday to express "deep concern" about the threat to stability in Central Asia, while Britain and the United States condemned the violence in Uzbekistan, urging the Uzbek authorities to resolve it peacefully.

"We urge both the government and the demonstrators to exercise restraint at this time," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Friday.

"We have had concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan, but we are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist organization that were freed from prison," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 16, 2005)