{"id":13975,"date":"2018-09-05T19:24:07","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T19:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13975"},"modified":"2018-09-05T19:24:07","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T19:24:07","slug":"uns-iraq-envoy-calls-for-calm-after-bloody-day-in-basra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13975","title":{"rendered":"UN\u2019s Iraq envoy calls for calm after bloody day in Basra"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBASRA: The United Nations envoy to Iraq called Wednesday for \u201ccalm\u201d in Basra, after six died in the bloodiest day of protests over poor public services in the southern city.
In a statement, Jan Kubis, the UN\u2019s special representative in Iraq, called on \u201cthe authorities to avoid using disproportionate, lethal force against the demonstrators.\u201d
He also urged authorities to \u201cinvestigate and hold accountable those responsible for the outbreak of violence.\u201d
The authorities said in a press conference on Wednesday that security personnel were wounded in Tuesday\u2019s clashes.
\u201cThirty members of the security forces were wounded by grenades and incendiary objects being thrown,\u201d said General Jamil Al-Shammari, who is in charge of security operations in Basra.
Basra was nearly deserted on Wednesday morning.
Many shops were closed, while burned tires lay strewn across the city\u2019s streets, an AFP correspondent said.
The city \u2014 along with the province of the same name \u2014 has been hit by protests since early July against poor public services.
Residents are angry over pollution of the local water supply, which has put 20,000 people in hospital.
Kubis in his statement called on the government \u201cto do its utmost to respond to the people\u2019s rightful demands of clean water and electricity supplies as a matter of urgency.\u201d
The authorities said they would take measures to put an end to the health crisis that has ravaged the oil-rich province.
The local governorate\u2019s headquarters, the main rallying point for protesters, bore the traces of damage from molotov cocktails and fireworks thrown late into the night.
\u201cSix demonstrators were killed and more than 20 wounded\u201d in front of the government building on Tuesday evening, said Mehdi Al-Tamimi, head of the government\u2019s human rights council in Basra province.
Medical sources confirmed the death toll to AFP.
Tamimi accused the security forces of \u201copening fire directly on the protesters.\u201d
In his weekly press conference in Baghdad on Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi said he had ordered \u201cno real bullets … to be fired, in the direction of protesters or in the air.\u201d
Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr said in a tweet that \u201cvandals infiltrated\u201d the protesters.
Sadr\u2019s political bloc won the largest number of seats in national elections held in May, and he is trying to form a new government with Abadi.
Protesters also blocked roads and burned tires elsewhere in Basra province on Tuesday night, a correspondent said.
Abadi announced in the night that he had met lawmakers from Basra, who are in Baghdad for the parliament\u2019s first session since the elections.
He again indicated that water pollution would be addressed, without specifying any measures.
In July, the government announced a multibillion dollar emergency plan for southern Iraq, to revive infrastructure and services.
But protesters are wary of promises made by the outgoing government, as negotiations drag on over the formation of the next administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BASRA: The United Nations envoy to Iraq called Wednesday for \u201ccalm\u201d in Basra, after six died in the bloodiest day of protests over poor public services in the southern city.In a statement, Jan Kubis, the UN\u2019s special representative in Iraq, called on \u201cthe authorities to avoid using disproportionate, lethal force against the demonstrators.\u201dHe also urged…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}