The Osh riots (; ; ) were an ethnic conflict between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that took place in June 1990 in the cities of Osh and Uzgen, part of the Kirghiz SSR. The immediate cause of the riots was a dispute between an Uzbek nationalist group Adolat and a Kyrgyz nationalist group Osh Aymaghi over the land of a former collective farm. While official estimates of the death toll range from over 300 to more than 600, unofficial figures range up to more than 1,000. The riots have been seen as a forerunner to the 2010 ethnic clashes in the same region. Historical background Prior to the Soviet period, the inhabitants of the Osh region of the Fergana Valley referred to themselves as Kipchaks. In the 1920s, using language as the key determinant of ethnicity, Soviet ethnographers classified the lowland Kipchaks as Uzbeks and the highland Kipchaks as Kyrgyz. Although in the 1930s, Joseph Stalin divided the rich Fergana Valley among Kirghizia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, nationalities were not necessarily confined to the borders drawn for them. Along the "Kyrgyz" side of the river Tentek-Say, there was a significant population of Uzbeks. Because of the region's oil reserves, the local intelligentsia was able to obtain a significant degree of affluence, but infrastructure remained underdeveloped. During the Khrushchev era most of the deportees from the 1930s onward left to find better work elsewhere. By the late Brezhnev era, there were already signs of unemployment. By the late 1980s, the economic situation between both Kyrgyz and Uzbek populations had markedly noticeable differences. Uzbeks, who were traditionally the merchants and farmers of the region, benefited from the market conditions of the Gorbachev Era; Uzbeks also made up the largest number of workers in the most profitable industries, such as commerce and transportation. Perestroika had the opposite effect on the much larger Kyrgyz population. As collectives were disassembled and unemployment in the region grew, the Kyrgyz, who traditionally practiced animal husbandry, felt the brunt of the rising economic downturns—there was a housing deficiency and an unemployment rate of 22.8%. In addition to economic discrepancies, the ethnic ratios of the region's administrative posts did not respond to the demographics of the population. In 1990, the Uzbeks made up 26% of the region's population with the Kyrgyz at 60%, but only 4% of the key official posts were held by Uzbeks. In the late 1980s, several inter-ethnic