BAHRAIN:BAHRAIN'S SECURITY forces have continued their attempts to break the back of the island kingdom's mainly Shia opposition movement with a series of arrests and more attacks on Shia villages outside the capital.
Clashes between protesters and security forces continued yesterday, with the sounds of live gunfire and tear-gas canisters exploding ringing out of dilapidated Shia villages. Army checkpoints kept journalists at bay.
During the early hours of yesterday armed security forces broke into houses and arrested the leaders of Haq and al-Wafa, two banned Shia groups that have called for regime change, and Waad, a moderate, secular left-wing opposition party, for “contacting foreign countries”, the state-run Bahraini news agency, reported. They were among a group of Shia activists and opposition figures arrested.
Many Shia government officials have resigned in protest against the heavy-handed attempts to quash the protest movement, and labour unions have declared a general strike.
The 250,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery operated by Bahrain Petroleum Company has been shut down by the strike, weighing further on Bahrain’s already embattled economy.
Yet opposition leaders have thus far refrained from calling for more massive rallies – fearing that a showdown between protesters and security forces will lead to further bloodshed.
Even at Sitra, an opposition stronghold in the south of the island where the black flag of the Shia flutters from many homes, the mood is a mixture of despondency and rage.
After attacks by government forces on Tuesday and Wednesday – which resulted in at least two deaths and scores of injuries, according to local hospital staff – residents are now largely staying at home. “People are both really scared, and really angry, so it’s hard to say what people will do now,” said a Sitra resident.
The overall number of casualties is still unclear. Doctors said the official count of six deaths, three of which are from the police, was far too low.
At the International Hospital of Bahrain, to the west of the capital, Manama, staff said that on Wednesday two interior ministry cars drove by and shot tear-gas, rubber bullets and buckshots at relatives and patients gathered outside, while riot police took up positions to prevent more patients from arriving.
Medical staff and administrators at the hospital said they had seen three deaths and more than 50 serious injuries, some of which came from the attack that shattered the hospital’s glass doors.
“Shooting at a hospital is a crime. We’re talking about Geneva conventions,” said a senior hospital official. Government officials could not be reached to comment on the allegations.
At the Ibn al-Nafees private hospital close to the Pearl roundabout in Manama, where protesters had camped out for weeks but were driven away by security forces this week, staff said they saw 22 injured demonstrators and two dead on Wednesday. The fatalities were as a result of a shot through the back and a smashed skull, according to staff.
“The staff were in shock, just running about as the patients bled everywhere,” one doctor said.
Security forces later arrived at the hospital to take the bodies of the dead and transfer the injured patients to Salmaniya Medical Complex, which is now under military administration. – (Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2011)