SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Dozens of protesters were killed by security forces in Kazakhstan as they were trying to storm government buildings overnight, police said on Thursday.
Kazakh police said forces had “eliminated” tens of rioters in the largest city of Almaty as the unrest sparked by rising fuel prices boiled over into the biggest protests since independence in 1991, according to Reuters.
Several armored personnel carriers and scores of troops entered the main square of Almaty on Thursday morning where hundreds of people were protesting against the government for the third day, Reuters reported.
Gunshots were heard as troops approached the crowd, witnesses told Reuters, but the situation in the square had calmed down since then. Unverified video on social media showed troops patrolling Almaty’s foggy streets overnight, firing weapons, as well as widespread looting in the city.
State television on Thursday showed video of a pile of weapons on the street, with people walking up and taking them.
TASS news agency quoted the Kazakh health ministry as saying more than 1,000 people had been injured during the protests, and more than 400 of them were in hospital.
Protests spread across the nation of 19 million this week in outrage over a New Year increase in prices for liquid petroleum gas (LPG), which is widely used to fuel cars in the west of the country.
Thousands took to the streets in Almaty and in the western province of Mangystau, saying the price rise was unfair given oil and gas exporter Kazakhstan’s vast energy reserves.
“Last night, extremist forces tried to assault administrative buildings, the Almaty city police department, as well as local police commissariats. Dozens of assailants were eliminated,” police spokesman Saltanat Azirbek was quoted as saying by the Interfax-Kazakhstan, TASS and Ria Novosti news agencies, according to AFP.
The protests are the biggest threat so far to the regime established by Kazakhstan’s founding president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stepped down in 2019 and hand-picked Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as his successor.
Tokayev said gangs were seizing buildings, infrastructure and weapons.
“It is an undermining of the integrity of the state and most importantly it is an attack on our citizens who are asking me… to help them urgently,” he said.
He also ordered government protection for foreign embassies and businesses owned by foreign companies. The nation’s reputation for stability had helped attract hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment in oil and metals industries.
Eight police and national guard troops were killed in the unrest on Tuesday and Wednesday, Russia’s state-owned Sputnik agency said on Wednesday, quoting the Kazakh interior ministry. Russian news agencies, quoting Kazakh media, later said two soldiers had also been killed in what they described as an anti-terrorist operation at Almaty airport.
