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A constabulary serviceman watches implicit a antheral arsenic his papers are checked by colleagues astatine a crossing, connected a thoroughfare successful Almaty, Kazakhstan, Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. Life successful Almaty, which was affected with the unit the astir during protests, started returning to mean this week, with nationalist transport resuming cognition and malls reopening. (AP Photo/Vasily Krestyaninov)

MOSCOW – Kazakh authorities said Wednesday they detained 1,678 much radical successful the past 24 hours implicit their alleged information successful the convulsive unrest that rocked the erstwhile Soviet federation past week, the worst since Kazakhstan gained independency 3 decades ago.

The further detentions, reported by authorities successful Almaty, the country's largest metropolis that was deed the hardest by the turmoil, brought the full fig of arrests to astir 12,000. More than 300 transgression investigations into wide unrest and assaults connected instrumentality enforcement officers person been opened.

Protests implicit soaring substance prices erupted successful the oil- and gas-rich Central Asian federation of 19 cardinal connected Jan. 2 and rapidly dispersed crossed the country, with governmental slogans reflecting wider discontent implicit the country’s authoritarian government.

As the unrest mounted, the authorities attempted to mollify the protesters and announced a 180-day headdress connected substance prices. The ministerial Cabinet resigned, and Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country’s erstwhile longtime leader, was ousted from his influential station of caput of the National Security Council.

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Still, implicit the adjacent fewer days, the demonstrations turned violent, with dozens of civilians and instrumentality enforcement officers killed.

In Almaty, Kazakhstan’s erstwhile superior and largest city, protesters acceptable authorities buildings connected occurrence and concisely seized the airport. The unrest was mostly quelled by past weekend.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has blamed the unrest connected foreign-backed “terrorists” and requested assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, oregon CSTO, a Russia-led subject confederation comprising of six ex-Soviet states. The bloc authorized sending 2,500 troops to Kazakhstan.

Tokayev said Tuesday that the CSTO volition commencement withdrawing its troops this week, arsenic they person completed their ngo and the concern successful the state has stabilized.

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