This must stop now, UN says as Iraq protest death toll nears 100
Human rights chiefs accuse Abdul Mahdi of deploying snipers after 250 are wounded by high-power rifles
At least nine more people were killed in Iraq on Saturday as the death toll from six days of protests neared 100, with nearly 4,000 injured.
The UN demanded an end to the violence. “Five days of … deaths and injuries; this must stop,” said Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the secretary general’s special representative in Iraq.
Hours after a curfew in Baghdad was lifted on Saturday, protesters began gathering in the streets around Tahrir Square.
Armored vehicles and troops sealed off the area, while special forces and army vehicles deployed around the square.
Four people were killed when security forces fired at protesters in a street near the square. Hundreds of protesters retreated from tear gas and live fire by security forces, but at least three more were killed by gunfire.
Another protester was killed and 13 injured in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Zafaraniyah. Nearly 40 people were wounded in the capital.
Security forces broke up the main protest outside the Oil Ministry into smaller isolated groups, and conducted house-to-house searches. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the southern cities of Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah, defying a curfew that was still in place there.
In Diwaniyah, at least one protester was killed as demonstrators marched toward local government offices. In Nasiriyah, demonstrators torched the offices of three political parties and a member of parliament, and security forces responded with gunfire.
Iraq’s semi-official High Commission for Human Rights accused the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi of deploying snipers in Baghdad, where 250 people were treated for wounds caused by high-powered rifles. “We demand clarification from the Iraqi government on those wounded in Baghdad by sniper fire, which is ongoing today,” the commission said
Parliament had been due to meet on Saturday afternoon but failed to reach a quorum after a boycott by members controlled by the powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr. His movement could bring large numbers of supporters on to the streets, but at the risk of alienating many of those whose protests have been based on rejecting all of Iraq’s feuding political factions.
“These men don’t represent us. We don’t want parties any more. We don’t want anyone to speak in our name,” one protester said. Protesters first took to the streets last Tuesday, demanding an end to corruption, unemployment and failing public services.
Abu Salah, 70, a protester in Baghdad, said the streets would be full until Iraqis saw real change. “If living conditions don’t improve, the protests will come back even worse,” he said.