Israeli killed in Kazakhstan unrest

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: An Israeli national was killed in the violent protests that have shaken Kazakhstan, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

The 22-year-old was killed by gunfire in Almaty on Friday, the ministry said in a statement. He had been residing in Kazakhstan for the past few years.

Dozens of people have died and public buildings across Kazakhstan have been ransacked and torched over the past week in the worst violence experienced in the Central Asian nation, a major oil and uranium producer, since it became independent in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Israel issued a travel warning to Kazakhstan on Jan. 6.