They were not gangsters. They were rich kids who knew they could do what they liked here in Kyrgyzstan.

Thousands of workers travel across the border from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan to work on tobacco farms.

China's official Xinhua news agency said the plane was bound for Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, when it crashed Saturday morning in relatively good weather.

The United States Embassy in Kyrgyzstan issued a statement on its website expressing concern over the "politically-motivated" violence in the south, and urged a peaceful resolution to the situation.

A: Kyrgyzstan is a friendly neighbor of China and a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and China is closely following the situation there.