Following the eruption of last week's inner ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan, one of the major challenges is to have a "proper reconciliation process," said the UN special envoy for the Central Asian nation on Friday, adding that an investigation should take place.

"There is a lot of hatred, a lot of tensions, a lot of emotions, and I think one of the major challenges here is to have a proper reconciliation process," Miroslav Jenca, the UN secretary-general' s special representative for Central Asia and head of the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA), said here via telecom at a press conference.

Asked what had caused the riots, he said that "we are of course looking at what happened there, but I think here that proper investigation should take place and such an investigation should be part of reconciliation and confidence building process."

Calling the situation on the ground very "fluid," Jenca said the priority is to ensure humanitarian access for those in need in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan.

An estimated 300,000 people have been displaced in Kyrgyzstan, and up to 100,000 have fled to Uzbekistan, where some 80,000 are located in camps.

The border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan remains open, and some 9,000 refugees arrived in Uzbekistan on Wednesday alone.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and other UN agencies on Friday called on humanitarian agencies to be prepared to assist as many as 1 million people affected by the violence in the central Asian nation.

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