Deadly clashes in Baghdad kill at least 18
At least 18 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police in Baghdad overnight on Saturday, according to police and medical sources, as the cabinet tried to appease public anger over corruption and unemployment with a new reform plan.
The scale of the protests, in which nearly 100 people have died since Tuesday, has taken the authorities by surprise.
Two years after the defeat of the Islamic State, security is better than it has been in years, but corruption is rampant, wrecked infrastructure has not been rebuilt and jobs remain scarce.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s 17-point plan was the result of an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday night and comes after days of offering only vague reform promises.
It includes increased subsidised housing for the poor, stipends for the unemployed as well as training programmes and small loans initiatives for unemployed youth.
The families of those killed during demonstrations last week will also get payouts and care usually granted to members of the security forces killed during war.
“Amid all of this, I swear to God that my only concern is for the casualties,” Abdul Mahdi said during the cabinet meeting, according to state TV.
The streets of the capital were quiet earlier on Sunday.
Protests have tended to gather steam later in the day.
The clashes shattered a day of relative calm on Saturday after authorities lifted a curfew and traffic moved normally in the centre of Baghdad.
Hundreds of security personnel were on the streets.
The demonstrations began in Baghdad on Tuesday but quickly spread to other cities mainly in the south of the country.
In Nasiriya, where 18 people were killed during the week, police fired live rounds at protesters on Saturday.
Twenty-four people were wounded in the clashes overnight, including seven policemen, according to security, hospital and morgue sources.
Violence also broke out again in Diwaniya, another city south of Baghdad, killing at least one person, police said.
The cabinet’s new plan may not be enough to placate protesters and the politicians who have sided with them.
Opposition to the government among parliamentary blocs who have begun boycotting legislative meetings is already brewing, adding pressure on Abdul Mahdi and his cabinet to step down.
Influential Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has a mass following and controls a large chunk of parliament, has demanded the government resign and snap elections be held.
But political parties which have dominated Iraqi politics since the 2003 US-led invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein have not indicated they are willing to relinquish the institutions they control.
In eastern Baghdad on Friday and Saturday, police snipers shot at demonstrators and several people were wounded.
Security services said the violence killed eight members of the security forces and wounded more than 1,000, state television reported.
At least 95 demonstrators have died across Iraq, according to a Reuters tally based on police and medical sources.
Iraq’s semi-official High Commission for Human Rights had put the toll at 99. –