Iraqi police on Friday fired live shots into the air, as well as rubber bullets and dozens of tear gas canisters, to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters in Baghdad.
Twenty-three protesters were killed and dozens were injured, security officials said.
The confrontations began early in the morning after anti-government demonstrations resumed, following a three-week hiatus.
Photo: AP
The protests began on Oct. 1 over corruption, unemployment and lack of basic services, but quickly turned deadly as security forces cracked down on participants, using live ammunition.
The protests then spread to several mainly Shiite-populated southern provinces, and authorities imposed a curfew and shut down the Internet for days in an effort to quell the unrest.
After a week of violence in the capital and the country’s southern provinces, a government-appointed inquiry into the protests determined that security forces had used excessive force, killing 149 people and wounding more than 3,000.
It also recommended the firing of security chiefs in Baghdad and the south.
Eight members of the security forces were also killed.
The protests are economically driven, largely leaderless and spontaneous against a sectarian-based system and a corrupt political class that has ruled for decades and driven the country to the brink of economic disaster.
The protests in Iraq threaten to plunge the country into a new cycle of instability that potentially could be the most dangerous this conflict-scarred nation has faced, barely two years after declaring victory over the Islamic State group.
Iraqi security forces and government officials vowed to avoid further deadly violence and deployed heavily on the streets of Baghdad in anticipation of Friday’s protests.
“They [leaders] have eaten away at the country like cancer,” 55-year-old Abu Ali al-Majidi said.
“They are all corrupt thieves,” he added, surrounded by his four sons who had come along for the protest.”
Thousands of people began converging to Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square early on Friday, carrying Iraqi flags and posters calling for change and reform.
However, after thousands of protesters removed metal security barriers and crossed the Jumhuriyya Bridge leading to Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the US Embassy and Iraqi government offices, soldiers fired tear gas to disperse them.
After they tried to remove concrete barriers near the entrance of the Green Zone, they fired live rounds to push the protesters back.
“Baghdad hurra hurra, fasad barra barra!” the demonstrators chanted, which is Arabic for “Baghdad is free, corruption is out.”
Riot police in full gear and armed soldiers lined the bridge. Ambulances and tuk-tuks zipped back and forth, ferrying the injured to hospitals.
A reporter for Iraq’s Sumariyya TV channel was among the injured.
Security and hospital officials said the dead included eight protesters who were killed in Baghdad. The remaining deaths were distributed across the provinces of Basra, Nasiriyah, Misan and Muthanna in southern Iraq.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Hundreds of people were taken to hospitals, many with shortness of breath from the tear gas.
Protests spread to the southern provinces later on Friday, including the flashpoint city of Basra where about 4,000 people gathered near the provincial government building.
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