A year after the start of the protests
The Iraqi authorities reopen Tahrir Square and the Republic Bridge in Baghdad
Cars pass by Tahrir Square in central Baghdad yesterday.
■ AFP
Yesterday, the Iraqi authorities reopened the Al-Jumhuriya Bridge and Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, the stronghold of the protest demonstrations in Iraq, in October last year, more than a year after they were closed.
Traffic returned normally to Tahrir Square, while security forces raised concrete barriers that were crossing the Jumhuriya Bridge, according to an AFP photographer.
The Jumhuriya Bridge and Tahrir Square were a center for the demonstrations that began last year to demand job opportunities for young people, secure public services, ensure transparent elections and eliminate corruption.
The Jumhuriya Bridge - which connects Tahrir Square directly to the Green Zone where the seat of the government, parliament and the US embassy - was a symbol of operations that killed about 600 protesters and injured 30,000 people all over Iraq.
The security forces had erected three concrete walls on this bridge, to prevent the demonstrators from entering the Green Zone.
The quarantine and the decline in global oil prices have plunged Iraq into a suffocating economic crisis like it has never seen in its history, with the poverty rate doubling to 40%.
In this context, many voices called for the opening of "liberation" and "the republic" to facilitate traffic flow in the capital, which has a population of 10 million, and to revive commercial traffic again in Baghdad.
On the other hand, Iraqi police sources said yesterday that at least two people were killed and 51 others were injured, after an explosion in a gas pipeline in the south of the country.
Police said that the explosion occurred near the city of Samawah, 270 kilometers south of Baghdad, and firefighting teams managed to contain the fire after closing the gas pipeline.
Police sources said that an extension of the pipeline passes near the camp of an Iraqi armed faction near Samawah.
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