All Kazakh children who suffered food poisoning during a youth football tournament in Tashkent have returned home, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhanbolat Usenov said at a briefing, according to infohub.kz.
According to the diplomat, the young athletes received treatment with the full support of Uzbekistan's Ministry of Health. "We would like to thank our Uzbek colleagues, because in this situation they provided maximum assistance. They helped with everything they could. I would also just say that the situation was not as frightening as it looked from the outside. The most important thing is that no long-term damage to health has been recorded. The children have returned. Thank God, everything is fine," Usenov said.
He noted that Uzbekistan is conducting an investigation into the incident. "In other countries, we cannot take part in investigations. The law enforcement system works in such a way that in each country it is its own, national and sovereign. It conducts the investigation independently. After that, all the necessary results and documents are provided to them. In this case, regarding the poisoning of Kazakh children, the investigation is being conducted by Uzbekistan's law enforcement agencies," he concluded.
Recall that on November 2, the Department of Physical Culture and Sports of the Karaganda Region reported that the region was represented at the tournament by private football schools in three age categories. At that time, it was known that 16 children, one coach and 11 parents had been hospitalized. It was noted that they had all stayed and eaten at a hotel in Tashkent.
Kazakhstan's Ministry of Health commented on the condition of the young football players from Karaganda who were hospitalized in Tashkent after breakfast at the hotel. After the mass poisoning of the children, Kazakhstan's embassy in Uzbekistan issued a statement. On November 3, Health Minister Akmaral Alnazarova said that Ministry of Health staff and Kazakh doctors were in contact with their Uzbek colleagues. The same day, it became known that Uzbekistan's prosecutor's office had opened a criminal case after the children were hospitalized in Tashkent.