Six protesters killed in south Iraq as unrest intensifies

24 November 2019, 6:22 pm

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Six protesters were killed today in Iraq’s south where angry demonstrations turned up the heat on a paralyzed government facing the country’s largest grassroots movement in decades.

Three demonstrators died and around 50 were wounded in clashes with security forces near the key southern port of Umm Qasr, the Iraqi Human Rights Commission reports.

An AFP correspondent says security forces fired live rounds at protesters trying to block access to the port, a vital lifeline for food and medicine imports as well as energy exports.

Hours earlier, before dawn, three protesters were shot dead and at least 47 wounded by security forces in Nasiriyah, some 300 kilometers (200 miles) south of the capital Baghdad, medical sources says.

— AFP