Updated | 10:30 p.m. As my colleague Clifford Levy reports, opposition protesters appear to have overthrown the government of Kyrgyzstan for the second time in five years after riot police officers fired on demonstrators on Wednesday.

At least 41 people were killed and more than 350 wounded in clashes in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, according to an official with Kyrgyzstan’s health ministry. By day’s end, opposition leaders declared that they had formed a new government in the central Asian nation.

Embedded below are two videos of protests that were uploaded to a new YouTube account, set up on Wednesday, by someone using the screen name “gogimanov.” While it is impossible to independently verify the authenticity of the video, both of the short clips bear file names that suggest that they were shot today, in the following order.

Loud shots of some kind can be heard in the first clip, before riot police officers advance down a street:

Shots can also be heard in the second clip, before protesters appear to hurl rocks at retreating riot police officers:

Three more short clips, including the one at the very top of this blog post and another two embedded below, were uploaded to another new YouTube account on Wednesday by an anonymous user who said they were shot in Kyrgyzstan.

In the clip at the top of the post, protesters seem to force members of the security forces to retreat. In the two clips below, protesters — some of them armed — appear to celebrate their victory.

The need for citizen journalism on behalf of the opposition may not be as pressing this evening as it was this morning, though, since the protesters apparently stormed a state television studio in Bishkek and seized control of the airwaves. The country’s president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was said to have fled the capital on the presidential plane.

The Web site of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is financed by the American government, posted this video obtained by Reuters (which contains graphic images of wounded or dead protesters), showing the clashes on Wednesday:

A report from Rayhan Demytrie of the BBC showed the scene in Bishkek’s main square immediately after the clashes and included images of a dead protester wrapped in a blanket.

Ms. Demytrie wrote on the BBC’s Web site:

Stun grenades and live rounds were fired at protesters in Bishkek’s main square. The situation was chaotic with protesters attempting to move towards the presidential administration. They were shouting that President Bakiyev must go.

A young protester was shot dead at the scene. His body was lying on a marble pavement and a large crowd was gathering around it. There was anger, lots of it. The protesters attacked riot police with rocks and machetes — some police officers were badly injured.

Men in Kyrgyzstan compare Wednesday’s riots to the ones five years ago when mass protests brought President Bakiyev to power. He was the hero of the so-called Tulip Revolution — a politician who many in Kyrgyzstan hoped would bring democratic changes to the country. But today, people are angry and frustrated. The detention of opposition leaders on Tuesday night backfired. Wednesday’s protests were uncontrollable.

Later in the day, The Associated Press posted this raw video of the clashes online:

This video was posted on the Kyrgyz-language Web site of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

(We would be grateful to any readers who speak Kyrgyz for translations of the title of this clip or any of what is being said in it.)

Timur Toktonaliev and Ainagul Abdurahmanova, two Kyrgyz journalists trained by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nongovernmental organization based in London, are reporting on the protests from Bishkek for the media organization’s Web site. They wrote:

[S]everal thousand demonstrators marched on the White House, where the president’s office is located, in the center of Bishkek. As the crowds reached the White House, units of the OMON special police in full riot gear attempted to dispel them using tear gas and smoke grenades. Protesters attempted to get past the high railings that ring the building but were repelled. Eyewitnesses said police also opened fire using live ammunition.

“There have been several attempts to storm the White House, but they’ve been driven back,” said a journalist who was on the spot. “There are two ranks of police with combat weapons behind the White House railings. They are using their weapons and tear gas. An OMON vehicle seized by the opposition supporters is now ablaze.”

They added that “demonstrations were a feature of Bakiev’s first few years in office, after his erstwhile allies — the opposition groups which helped him to power after then president Askar Akaev fled the country in the March 2005 ‘Tulip Revolution’ — turned against him.” A local analyst, who asked the journalists not to name him, attributed the protests to “widespread anger at the consequences of an economic crisis whose end is not yet sight, at the dramatic and simultaneous price rises for electricity and mobile calls, and at the sell-off of state enterprises and companies of strategic importance.”

While, as Mr. Levy explains, human rights groups have expressed concerns about what they call the increasingly repressive policies of Kyrgyzstan’s government, the the country is not as isolated as some neighboring former Soviet republics. Bishkek is even home to the American University of Central Asia.

Some of the students at this American-accredited university spoke to the BBC in 2008, for a travel show called “Holidays in the Danger Zone: The Stans,” and complained of how little Americans knew about their country. Here are some of the interviews with those Kyrgyz students:

If readers are in Kyrgyzstan and have eyewitness accounts to share with us — in the form of text, video or photographs — please contact us by writing in the comment thread below or sending an e-mail message to lede@nytimes.com.

Update: Thanks to Michael Forster Rothbart, a reader of The Lede, who wrote in to say:

I am a photojournalist who used to work in Kyrgyzstan. First, I can confirm that the YouTube videos above were shot near the White House. The first video is in Ala-Too Square, two blocks east of the White House. The second is shot on Prospekt Chui (Chui Blvd), across the street from the White House. 4th + 5th are also Ala-Too square, which was also a center of protests during the Tulip revolution. RFERL video is from numerous places, including Dubovui (Oak) Park, Erkindik Bul. (St.) and Chui Propsekt. Note that the tall black fence with gold round and diamond seals is the White House.