The government ordered the curfew to be lifted in Baghdad on Saturday at dawn. Nearly a hundred people, the vast majority of them demonstrators, have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded since the beginning of the movement, Tuesday.
The government lifts the 48-hour curfew in Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi ordered the end of the measure on Saturday (October 5th) in Baghdad, where Iraqis demonstrated on Friday for the fourth successive day against the government. Shots were still heard in the night in the capital at the time of the announcement of this measure, which remains in force in other areas in the south of the country.
Hundreds of people, the vast majority of them demonstrators, have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded since the beginning of a protest movement in Iraq, according to a final assessment on Saturday of the Iraqi government's human rights commission.
At least six police officers were among those killed during protests in Baghdad and several areas in the south of the country with a Shiite majority, according to medical and police sources.
In Baghdad, violent clashes between the riot police and the protesters. Heavy fire resounded throughout the day in the capital and continued into the night, but sporadically, according to Agence France-Presse reporters on site. Many stores have also closed. Those opened have been stormed by customers wanting to buy vegetables, whose price has tripled due to the closure of roads leading to Baghdad.
Call for the resignation of the government
Shiite populist Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday demanded the government's resignation, putting more pressure on power. This call from a prominent Iraqi politician is likely to mobilize its many supporters, who could join the demonstrations in Baghdad and several Shiite cities in the south of the country, against corruption, unemployment and decay of public services.
"To avoid further Iraqi bloodshed, the government must resign and early elections must be held under UN supervision"said in a letter issued by his office Mr. Al-Sadr, a dreaded former militia leader who has become in recent years the herald of anti-corruption demonstrations.
Its coalition, which won in 2018 the legislative elections, is the first bloc in Parliament and participates with four ministers in the government. The withdrawal in 2018 of his support for the then prime minister, Haider Al-Abadi, as a result of a social movement, prevented him from being re-elected.
Movement born on the Internet
Born of calls on social networks, the protest movement is the first test for the government of Adel Abdel Mahdi in place for a year in a country released, less than two years ago, nearly four decades of conflict and who suffers from a chronic shortage of electricity and drinking water.
According to observers, protesters who took to the streets spontaneously on Tuesday, and who say they have no political affiliation, should reject any political recovery of their movement by supporters of Mr. Sadr. The movement affects, in addition to Baghdad, the provinces of Najaf, Missane, Zi Qar, Wassit, Diwaniya, Babylon and Basra. For the time being, mainly Sunni areas in the north and west of Baghdad have not seen protests. The autonomous region of Kurdistan either.
