In
what appears to be a spontaneous outburst of outrage over
unemployment, poor services and corruption days of anti-government
protests
have
convulsed the capital, Baghdad, and several other Iraqi cities.
Protesters demand improved services, more jobs and an end to
the corruption that analysts describe as endemic. The
focus of the demonstrators' anger has been not just the government
but Iraq's wider political establishment. Millions
lack access to adequate healthcare, schooling, water or power
supplies. Much of the country's infrastructure remains in ruins. Many
government officials and lawmakers are widely accused of siphoning
off public money, unfairly awarding contracts in state institutions
and other forms of corruption.
Iraq
has the world's fourth-largest reserves of oil, according to the
International
Monetary Fund (IMF),
but nearly three-fifths of its 40 million people live on less than $6
a day.
The
protests do not appear to have been coordinated by a particular
political group and have seemingly cut across ethnic and
sectarian lines. The protests arose in the south, heartland of the
Shi'ite majority, but quickly spread, with no formal leadership.
Dozens of people have been killed during clashes between
demonstrators and security forces, who have attempted to disperse the
protests by using live ammunition, tear gas and water cannon. Police
appear to be targeting individual protesters. Reuters reporters saw
one fall to the ground after being shot in the head. Elsewhere, a
Reuters television crew saw a man critically wounded by a gunshot to
the neck after snipers on rooftops opened fire at a crowd. He was
pronounced dead in hospital. Curfews have been declared in Baghdad
and the southern cities of Nasiriya, Amara, Najaf and Hilla.
Authorities have also imposed a near-total internet blackout in a bid
to make it harder for protesters to mobilise.
"The
people are being robbed. The people are now begging on the street.
There is no work, you come to protest, they fire at you.”
"We
want jobs and better public services. We've been demanding them for
years and the government has never responded."
"There's
no electricity, no jobs, people are dying of starvation, and people
are sick."
"We
are not Daesh, we are peaceful protesters calling for our simple
rights - why they are firing at us?”
“ We
want to change the regime. They have arrested our people, they have
done things to our people that they did not even do to Daesh - they
beat them up and humiliated them while firing live gunfire. What did
we do? Are we suicide bombers? We are here to call for our rights."
“We
are demanding our simplest rights … we sacrifice ourselves for our
country, to be sacrificed for Iraq. Our people. Come out, not for
yourselves, but for your children."
"All
my brothers and relatives have graduated from universities but are
jobless so why I should study if there is no future?"
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