Forty-seven illegal migrants - Uzbek citizens - have been detained near the Saryagash checkpoint in South Kazakhstan Regionб Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported.

The Arlan special-purpose unit today stopped a Mercedes bus carrying 47 citizens of Uzbekistan, while attempting to enter the country illegally, the press service of the regional directorate of the Ontustik (South) border service of the Kazakh National Security Committee told the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency.

The detainees are currently being held at the checkpoint. They will be fined and deported, the press service said.

Meanwhile, the deputy commander of military unit No 2020 (the Saryagash border detachment), Chingiz Toktasynov, told Interfax-Kazakhstan that border guards had to use weapons to detain the illegal migrants.

Toktasynov said when the border detachment was checking the bus, unidentified people who suddenly arrived at the scene of the incident in cars forced him [Toktasynov] onto the bus carrying border violators. On the bus, illegal migrants held a knife to his throat and threatened to kill him, while the bus went on moving at a high speed deep into Kazakh territory violating traffic rules. Nevertheless, taking a chance Toktasynov was able to seize the steering wheel from the driver at the entrance to the town of Saryagash and drive the bus into the territory of a local car park where a task force group arrived soon.

"At that time those very unidentified people and those very foreign cars appeared there again. They again attempted to drive the bus away and run over the border guards. In this situation, the head of the detachment ordered to shoo at the wheels of the bus and cars. Only after that we were able to detain all participants in the incident," Toktasynov said.