Two more demonstrators were killed in southern Iraq, officials said, as protests against unemployment on Saturday spread from the port city of Basra to other parts of the country, including Baghdad.
Authorities scrambled to rein in days of unrest by declaring a curfew in Basra province, while Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced fresh funds and promises of investment for the southern region.
The deaths overnight in Maysan province on the border with Iran brought to three the number of demonstrators killed since the protests erupted on July 8 in neighboring Basra.
A spokesman for the Maysan health authorities, Ahmad al-Kanani, said the pair died from gunshot wounds in the provincial capital Amarah.
It was not clear who killed them, but al-Kanani said there had been “indiscriminate gunfire” in the city.
Dozens more have been wounded in the past week, including security forces, medical sources said.
The unrest comes as Iraq struggles to rebuild after a devastating three-year war against Islamic State jihadists, and with the country in political limbo following elections in May.
The demonstrations over unemployment, the rising cost of living and a lack of basic services escalated after a protester was killed by security forces on July 8 in Basra.
Demonstrators set tyres ablaze to block roads and tried to storm government installations.
On Friday, al-Abadi flew to Basra from Brussels, where he had attended a NATO summit, to try to restore calm.
Yet even as he met the governor of the oil-rich province and energy chiefs, protesters took to the streets of Basra city, as well as other parts of the province, and the unrest spread further afield.
From Friday night to Saturday, protests were held outside the various political parties’ headquarters in Maysan — including al-Abadi’s Dawa Party — and some were set on fire, Iraqi media reported.
A small protest also took place after midnight in the northern Baghdad district of al-Shula, amid a heavy deployment of security forces, a security source said, adding that a few protesters were still out on the streets on Saturday morning, but the demonstration was peaceful.
Unidentified calls were also posted on social media for massive demonstrations to take place on Saturday in Baghdad.
Some urged demonstrators to head for the fortified Green Zone, an area out of bounds for most Iraqis where the country’s key institutions and embassies, including the US and British missions, are located.
Dozens of protesters rallied in different parts of Basra, including at the West Qurna and Majnoon oil fields west of the city, an Agence France-Presse correspondent said.
Protesters gathered at Basra’s Umm Qasr port and outside the governor’s office in the center of the city. A group of demonstrators also staged a brief protest at the Safwan border crossing with neighboring Kuwait.
Protestors in the city of Basra tried to set fire to the office of the Iranian-supported Badr organization, setting off clashes with security forces.
After that incident, the authorities announced an overnight curfew across the whole province.
Al-Abadi on Saturday evening announced investment worth US$3 billion for Basra province, as well as pledges to spend on housing, schools and services.
Shiite clerics, including Moqtada al-Sadr, whose populist coalition triumphed in the May elections, have backed the protesters, but urged them to refrain from violence.
Sadr has sought to form a broad coalition with rivals including al-Abadi, but the process has been complicated by the Supreme Court ordering manual recounts in areas where the election was disputed.
After visiting Basra, the prime minister chaired a security cabinet meeting in Baghdad, his office said in a statement, accusing “infiltrators” of feeding on “peaceful protests to attack public and private property.”
“Our forces will take all the necessary measures to counter those people,” the statement said.
Officially, 10.8 percent of Iraqis are jobless, while youth unemployment is twice as high in a country where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 24.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS