Iraqi protesters on Friday torched the
Iranian consulate in the southern city of Basra in fresh demonstrations
over poor public services after parliament called for an emergency
session on the unrest.
Unidentified
attackers also fired shells into Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone in a
rare attack on an area housing parliament, government offices and the US
embassy. There were no casualties.
Basra
has seen a surge in protests since Tuesday, with demonstrators torching
government buildings as well as political party and militia offices, as
anger boils over after the hospitalisation of 30,000 people who had
drunk polluted water.
At least nine
demonstrators have been killed since then in clashes with security
forces, Mehdi al-Tamimi, head of Basra’s human rights council, has said.
The
wave of protests first broke out in July in oil-rich Basra province
before spreading to other parts of the country, with demonstrators also
condemning corruption among Iraqi officials and demanding
“We’re thirsty, we’re hungry, we are sick and abandoned,” protester Ali Hussein told AFP Friday after another night of violence.
“Demonstrating is a sacred duty and all honest people ought to join.”
Thousands
of demonstrators rallied outside the Iranian consulate on Friday while
hundreds stormed the building and set in on fire, an AFP photographer
said.
A spokesman for the consulate said that
all diplomats and employees were evacuated from the building before the
protesters attacked, and that none of them were hurt.
Iran
is a key power broker in Iraq and many of the militias and political
parties whose offices were torched Thursday are known to be close to the
Islamic republic.
- ‘Excessive force’ -
Parliament
said that lawmakers and ministers, including Prime Minister Haider
al-Abadi, will meet on Saturday to discuss the water contamination
crisis, the latest breakdown in public services to infuriate residents.
The
meeting was demanded by populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose
political bloc won the largest number of seats in May elections although
a new government has yet to be formed.
Sadr,
whose supporters held protests inside the Green Zone in 2016 to condemn
corruption among Iraqi officials, called for “demonstrations of
peaceful anger” in Basra after the main weekly Muslim prayers on Friday.
And
the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spiritual leader of
Iraq’s Shiite majority, in his Friday sermon denounced “the bad
behaviour of senior officials” and called for the next government to be
“different from its predecessors”.
At
least 24 people have been killed in the demonstrations since they
erupted in Basra on July 8. Human rights activists have accused the
security forces of opening fire on the demonstrators. But the government
has blamed provocateurs in the crowds and said troops have been ordered
not to use live rounds.
Amnesty International on Friday
denounced “the use of excessive force by security forces” and called for
an investigation into the deaths.
The
anger on Basra streets was “in response to the government’s intentional
policy of neglect” of the oil-rich region, the head of the region’s
human rights council Tamimi said.
Abadi
has scrambled to defuse the anger and authorities have already pledged a
multi-billion dollar emergency plan to revive infrastructure and
services in southern Iraq.
But Iraqis remain deeply sceptical as the country remains in a state of political limbo.
Sadr
on Thursday called for politicians to present “radical and immediate”
solutions at the emergency meeting of parliament or step down if they
fail to do so.
Abadi,
for his part, is trying to hold onto his post in the future government
through forming an alliance with Sadr, a former militia chief who has
called for Iraq to have greater political independence from both
neighbouring Iran and the United States.