Iraqi protesters pressed on with indignant anti-government rallies in the capital and across several provinces for a fifth day Saturday, setting government offices on fire and ignoring suits for calm from political and religious leaders. Security agencies fatally shot 19 protesters and wounded assorted than three dozen in a sustained deadly response that has claimed more than 80 lives since the confusion began.
The semiofficial Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, affiliated with the parliament, put the death toll at 94. It predicted nearly 4,000 people have been wounded since Tuesday, when mostly young demonstrators spontaneously introduced the rallies to demand jobs, improvements to electricity, water and other services, and an end to corruption in the oil-rich nation.
The violent stoppage presented the conflict-scarred nation with its most serious challenge since the defeat of the Islamic State group two years ago and intensified the political crisis of a country still struggling with the legacy of multiple, unfinished wars since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
“It has been 16 years of corruption and injury,” said Abbas Najm, a 43-year-old unemployed engineer who was part of a rally Saturday in the square. “We are not afraid of bullets or the expiration of martyrs. We will keep going and we won’t back down.”
Scrambling to contain the demonstrations, Iraqi leaders called an difficulty session of parliament Saturday to discuss the protesters’ demands. But they lacked a quorum due to a boycott called by influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, numero uno of parliament’s largest bloc. On Friday, al-Sadr called on Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi’s government to resign and hold original elections, saying the shedding of blood of Iraqis “cannot be ignored.”
Abdul-Mahdi said in an address to the nation that the protesters’ “valid demands” had been heard, but he defended the deadly response of security forces as a “bitter medicine” that was necessary for the fatherland to swallow.
In a desperate attempt to curb the growing rallies, authorities blocked the internet Wednesday and imposed a round-the-clock curfew on Thursday. The curfew, ignored by protesters, was boosted at 5 a.m. Saturday, allowing shops to open and traffic to flow in most of Baghdad before the new demonstrations began.
As in previous times, protesters waited to gather until the afternoon, when temperatures were cooler and ensured greater participation, and fastness forces responded by opening fire.
Health and security officials said more than a dozen people were killed and around 40 wounded in the capital on Saturday when security forces opened fire during protests in various neighborhoods, comprehending central Tahrir Square, which remained closed to cars, and around which special forces and army means deployed in an operation that extended as far as 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away. The forces also unleashed tear gas, said salubriousness, police and medical officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to brief reporters.
A protester who not allowed to be named for fear of repercussions said anti-riot police directly opened fire at the protesters. The military initially try out to stop the police but ultimately left the area, the protester said.
In a smaller, peaceful rally earlier Saturday in the select, demonstrators raised banners demanding the resignation of Abdul-Mahdi and an investigation into the killings of protesters.
Thousands of protesters also took to the circles in the southern cities of Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah, defying a curfew still in place there. In Diwaniyah, at least one protester was killed as demonstrators walked toward local government offices, a medical official and human rights official said. They did not provide minutiae.
In the restive city of Nasiriyah, demonstrators torched the offices of three political parties and a lawmaker whom they on for their country’s ills. Security forces responded with gunfire, but there was no immediate word on casualties, said the officials, who described the kick as “very large.”
Abdul Mahdi’s office and Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi have called on protest representatives to experience with them so they could hear their demands. In a televised meeting in parliament, al-Halbusi met with a league of Iraqis and tribal representatives, mostly in their 50s and older, to discuss the country’s myriad problems. Al-Hablusi repeated promises to accost unemployment and poverty.
But the promises did nothing to stop the unfolding street violence. The deadliest day was Friday, when 22 people were coup de grѓced in Baghdad. Health officials said many of those victims were wounded in the head and chest.
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