BAs a result, Kazakhstan only wants to keep an honorable memory of some of the victims of the unrest, which last week particularly hit the two million metropolis of Almaty in the south-east of the country: the members of the security forces. According to official information, 18 of them died. President Kassym-Shomart Tokayev, who visited Almaty on Wednesday for the first time since the unrest, met relatives of killed police officers and soldiers there, awarded medals posthumously and promised support to the families. On Thursday, Almaty’s mayor announced that a memorial to the security forces who had been killed would be erected on the central republic square, “as a lesson to posterity that they may remember those who protected our country from terrorists, preserves the peace and security of its citizens have guaranteed “.
So far there is nothing to suggest that civilian victims should also be thought of; not the peaceful demonstrators who, according to witnesses, were shot at on Republic Square, not even the passers-by. The number 164, which was circulating as the official victim number on Sunday, has been withdrawn, a new one not given. But relatives, colleagues and activists collect the names of the dead, injured and missing online, naming names like Jerlan Shagiparov’s. According to witnesses in Almaty, the archeology enthusiast was abducted by “soldiers” when he was on the way near the Republic Square on the evening of January 6; he is said not to have participated in protests, but to have visited his mother in the hospital. After days of searching, friends found Shagiparov’s body in a morgue.
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