Iraqi students join thousands in ongoing anti-gov’t protests as Death toll climbs
Mon 28 October 2019:
Students in Iraq have joined anti-government protests in Baghdad as thousands stood fast in the capital’s central Tahrir Square, defying a bloody crackdown that killed scores over the weekend and an overnight raid by security forces seeking to disperse them.
Several schools and universities decided to shut their doors, activists said on Sunday, with some protesting on campus and others heading towards the main gathering spaces for rallies.
Young men had erected barricades on a bridge leading to the capital’s fortified Green Zone against security forces who continued to lob tear gas canisters towards them.
Medical and security sources said 77 people were wounded.
At least 74 Iraqis were killed on Friday and Saturday and hundreds wounded as demonstrators clashed with security forces and militia groups in the second wave of this month’s protests against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government.
The protests are a continuation of the economically driven demonstrations that began in early October and turned deadly as security forces began cracking down and using live ammunition.
About 231 people have been killed in October.
Many view the political elite as subservient to one or other of Iraq’s two main allies, the US and Iran – powers they believe are more concerned with wielding regional influence than ordinary Iraqis’ needs.
“I ask you Abdul Mahdi, it’s been 16 years and you’ve done nothing. We’re going from bad to worse,” Ma’azir Yas, who had wrapped herself in an Iraqi flag, told Reuters news agency. “This protest is peaceful and the young men only ask for their rights: jobs and services.”
Nearly three-fifths of Iraq’s 40 million people live on less than six dollars a day, World Bank figures show, despite the country housing the world’s fifth-largest proven reserves of oil.
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