Shooting on Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan border kills five

A border guard in Kyrgyzstan has shot dead five people close to the country's volatile border with Kazakhstan, local officials have said.

The man killed four of his colleagues, along with one of their wives, before reportedly fleeing with stolen weapons.

Police are now searching the mountainous area for the gunman.

The shooting follows several similar incidents in the region, including the discovery of 11 bodies in a Kazakh park near the border earlier this month.

Police found the charred remains scattered across the Ile-Alatau national park, near Almaty.

In this latest incident to hit the border region between China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the unnamed gunman killed the commander of the remote mountain outpost, as well as a senior soldier, a warrant officer and a fourth soldier and his wife.

It happened about 100km (65 miles) south-east of the popular Lake Issyk-Kul resort.

In June, a Kazakh border guard allegedly killed 14 of his colleagues and a local civilian at an outpost near the border with China.

The victims had been shot and the border post set on fire.