BASRA: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi went to Basra on Friday hoping to restore calm in the southern city, which has been gripped by protests over unemployment, his office said.
Abadi flew straight into the city from Brussels where he attended a NATO summit to discuss the Daesh group and immediately held talks with officials, a statement said.
Demonstrations have been ongoing over the past several days, with protesters in some cases setting tires ablaze to block roads and trying to storm government installations.
The protests erupted on Sunday and security forces opened fire killing a protester, sparking further anger.
As well as unemployment, protesters are frustrated by rising living costs and a lack of basic services in the city, the capital of Basra province.
There were further protests on Friday morning and calls for a demonstration in the afternoon in front of the local provincial headquarters.
On Thursday Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi said protesters tried to break into an oil installation in the West Qurna oil field of Basra province.
In a statement released by his office, Luaibi said the demonstrators failed to enter the area but had set fire to a gate and a security post.
Officially, 10.8 percent of Iraqis are jobless, while youth unemployment is twice as high in a country where 60 percent of the population are aged under 24.
Abadi has vowed to rebuild the economy, ravaged by years of conflict, but frustrations have been growing especially in the oil-rich south.
Iraq is the second biggest producer of crude in the OPEC oil cartel, with 153 billion barrels of proven reserves.
Iraq PM heads to oil-rich Basra after violent protests
Iraq PM heads to oil-rich Basra after violent protests
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Helicopter crashes in Libya during medical evacuation, killing 3
- The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash
TRIPOLI: A helicopter has crashed in southeastern Libya, killing a medic and two crew members carrying out a medical evacuation, state media said Tuesday.
Libyan news agency LANA said the chopper went down overnight near an air base in the Kufra region about 60 kilometers north of the border between Libya and Chad.
The aircraft was attempting to evacuate a soldier who had been involved in a road accident in the desert, LANA said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known and it was unclear what happened to the injured soldier.
Libyan media reports said two foreign nationals were among those on board who were killed, but this was not confirmed by authorities.
The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash.
Libya remains split between the eastern administration and a UN-backed government in the west led by Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah. The LANA news agency is under the control of western authorities.
Libya has struggled to recover from chaos that erupted following a 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled and killed longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi.
