The people of violence-wracked Kyrgyzstan voted on Sunday on a new Constitution just weeks after deadly ethnic purges, a vote that the interim government hopes will legitimise the power it seized in April.

Kyrgyz security forces clashed with ethnic Uzbeks near the troubled southern city of Osh on Monday and at least two people were killed, officials and human rights groups said.

Kyrgyz mob burned Uzbek villages, slaughtered their residents and stormed police stations seeking to loot more wea-pons on Sunday as ethnic rioting engulfed new areas in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan on Saturday asked Russia to send troops to end ethnic violence that has killed more than 60 people and wounded about 800 in the impoverished nation that hosts US and Russian military bases,