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At least 40 people died on Friday (October 25th) in Baghdad and southern Iraq in violent protests against the government.
It is in the hundreds that the Iraqis gathered this Friday Tahrir Square, in Baghdad, epicenter of the protest. Two weeks after the end of the recent demonstrations, they no longer ask for better services or less unemployment, but the fall of the regime. " We came to protest because we lost our homeland. We are looking for him. We do not want electricity or water, we want freedom, "says Ahmed, 24, an Iraqi flag on his shoulders.
Regularly, tear gas or stun grenades create panic movements among protesters, reports Baghdad correspondent Lucile Wasserman . They say they are afraid of the riot police or snipers who broke into the streets of Baghdad during the last rallies.
For Kemal, fifty-year-old with graying hair, the government keeps a double discourse on this violence. It's unbearable, he says. " The Prime Minister has officially announced that the authorities will not stop any demonstrators, but they attacked us from 9am, 9:30 am! You hear ? It looks like we are on a front line fighting an enemy, "he notes as detonations sound nearby.
At mid-day, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's highest Shiite religious authority, called security forces and protesters to " restrain " to avoid " chaos ." But the situation got tense during the afternoon.
The protesters attacked two governorate seats that were set on fire in the south, before attacking dozens of headquarters of political parties and armed factions. In the evening, a last assessment reported 42 demonstrators killed. At least half of them are dead in these fires or fatally shot in attacks on groups of the powerful paramilitary coalition of Hashd al-Shaabi, the prime ally of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi's government.
" We deeply regret the number of people who have died, " UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded in a meeting with the media, citing a recent report by the UN mission on the Iraqi forces' action. during the events. " According to our initial findings, there have clearly been substantial violations of human rights that must be clearly denounced and condemned, " he added, without further details.
On the night of Friday to Saturday, fires and attacks were reported in several southern provinces of the country where curfews were declared. In Baghdad, thousands of protesters were still gathered in Tahrir Square, and limited clashes were continuing on the adjacent al-Joumhouriya Bridge, which leads to the Green Zone, where Iraqi power and the US embassy sit.