KARYA DARYA, Kyrgyzstan – With her husband and four sons already across the border in Kyrgyzstan, 53-year-old Mamlaket wasted no time when authorities lifted roadblocks around the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan yesterday. Along with four of her grandchildren, she rushed to the refugee camp where more than 500 Uzbeks fled after government forces opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators in Andijan last week.

“I was waiting for them, I thought they would come back. When we found out on television that they were here, we decided to come,” she said. “I had to come and join him. Who is going to take care of us? We are only women and children.”

Arriving at the border not far from the refugee camp, Mamlaket, who declined to provide her last name for fear of political repercussions, and her family found the Uzbek side abandoned and were allowed to pass by Kyrgyz border guards. By early evening, she had joined a half-dozen other recent arrivals waiting outside the guarded gate to the camp. Soldiers told them they would be allowed to enter this morning.

Mamlaket and her family were among the first of what authorities expect could be thousands of refugees pouring into Kyrgyzstan in the coming days. Kyrgyzstan’s human-rights commissioner, Tursunbai Bakir Uulu, has warned that up to a million refugees could flood the country if violence continues.

Eastern Uzbekistan exploded in unrest after soldiers fired on hundreds of protesters in Andijan on Friday. Uzbek authorities, who blame the violence on Islamic extremists, say 137 “terrorists” and 32 soldiers died Friday, but witnesses and human-rights groups have put the death toll at more than 500. The violence marks the bloodiest chapter in Uzbekistan’s history since the country gained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Mamlaket said sporadic gunfire could still be heard in Andijan yesterday.

“Everybody is at home, scared. There are almost no people on the streets,” she said.

In an attempt to promote its version of events, the government whisked foreign diplomats through Andijan yesterday, showing them a prison and government building seized by rebels on Friday. The diplomats traveled under police escort and were not allowed to speak with civilians. President Karimov, who has ruled Uzbekistan with an iron fist since independence, is coming under increasing international criticism in the wake of the unrest, including from America, which has a military base in Uzbekistan and considers the country a key regional ally.

Sympathy for the victims is running high in Kyrgyzstan, and many here are calling for those fleeing the violence to be granted refugee status. Talks are under way between the two countries, and sources say Uzbekistan is pressuring to have the refugees sent back to Uzbekistan.

In the meantime, Kyrgyz authorities and international relief organizations are preparing for a massive influx of refugees. A delivery of more than 200 tents was expected today at the camp, which yesterday consisted of only 10 tents pitched side by side in a wide gully on a hilltop overlooking the border.

Authorities are shipping food, clothing, and other supplies to the area to be stockpiled for use as needed.

Yesterday, refugees were given documents that identified them as asylum seekers, which allows them to stay in Kyrgyzstan while authorities figure out what to do with them.

The refugees were terrified that they would eventually be forced to return to Uzbekistan.

“If I go to the other side, they would shoot me down, and you could watch it through binoculars,” a 38-year-old baker from Andijan, Avaz, said as he pointed to the Uzbek side of the border. “If the government of Kyrgyzstan allows us to stay, they will be saving our lives.”

Avaz, who declined to give his last name, arrived in Kyrgyzstan on Saturday nursing a gunshot wound to the arm after Uzbek soldiers fired on refugees trying to cross the border. He said many others were wounded and 11 killed in the attack. He and other refugees eventually managed to cross at another location.

Told that Uzbek authorities were saying that fewer than 140 civilians were killed in Friday’s attack, Avaz said simply: “It’s a lie.”

He said soldiers fired wildly into the crowd, not only in the central square where the protest was taking place but also in the streets as they tried to flee. He estimated that as many as 400 people were killed in the square alone.

“When the shooting started, I laid down, and this is the only reason I am alive,” he said. “There were children there and they didn’t understand that they had to lie down, and I saw them get killed.”

He also denied government allegations that armed militants were among the protesters.

“They were shooting at people like you see here, ordinary people, men, women, and children,” he said, looking around at his fellow refugees.