BAGHDAD: Hundreds of Iraqis gathered in Baghdad’s central Tahrir square on Saturday to mark the anniversary of anti-government unrest that erupted in 2019, amid tight security and prolonged political deadlock in the country.
With concerns about the risk of street violence, security personnel deployed checkpoints across the city, closed off bridges and squares and erected walls across some of the bridges leading to the fortified Green Zone that houses government headquarters and foreign embassies. Protesters waved the Iraqi flag and chanted “we want to overthrow the regime.”
“We took part in today’s peaceful protests because we want our demands to be met... we want security, jobs and our simple rights ... we are not here to fight or shed blood,” said Laith, a young protester from Baghdad.
A few meters from the square, security forces fired teargas to disperse stone-throwing protesters who had tried to tear down a wall blocking the Republic Bridge leading across the Tigris to the Green Zone, according to a Reuters reporter who witnessed the incident.
A military statement said some “infiltrated elements” were assaulting security forces using Molotov cocktails and hunting rifles.
In 2019, protests erupted against then prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government with demonstrators demanding an overhaul of a political system they see as profoundly corrupt and keeping most Iraqis in poverty.
More than 560 people, mostly unarmed demonstrators but also members of the security forces, were killed in the spate of popular unrest as Iraqi security forces and unidentified gunmen cracked down.
Mahdi quit under pressure from the protests with powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr the biggest winner in an election last October.
Sadr in June withdrew all his lawmakers, nearly a quarter of parliament, and resorted to whipping up street protests after his movement failed to form a government, leading to some of the worst clashes the country has seen in years.
Saturday’s gathering raised fears of more unrest and tension among power-hungry politicians that could further delay the formation of a government after Sadr quit politics at the end of August.
Four rockets landed in the Green Zone on Wednesday during a partial lockdown as parliament was convening, wounding seven security personnel, and another four rockets fired from eastern Baghdad landed around the zone on Thursday.
Iraqis gather in Baghdad to mark anniversary of 2019 anti-government protest
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Iraqis gather in Baghdad to mark anniversary of 2019 anti-government protest
- In 2019, protests erupted against then prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government with demonstrators demanding an overhaul of political system
UN warns clock ticking for Sudan’s children
- UNICEF says in parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished
- World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan says the country is facing multiple disease outbreaks
GENEVA: The United Nations warned Tuesday that time was running out for malnourished children in Sudan and urged the world to “stop looking away.”
Famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region, UN-backed experts warned last week, with the grinding war between the army and paramilitary forces leaving millions hungry, displaced and cut off from aid.
Global food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in North Darfur’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.
Ricardo Pires, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said the situation was getting worse for children by the day, warning: “They are running out of time.”
In parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished, he told a press conference in Geneva.
“Extreme hunger and malnutrition come to children first: the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable, and in Sudan it’s spreading,” he said.
Fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections, low vaccination coverage, unsafe water and collapsing health systems are turning treatable illnesses “into death sentences for already malnourished children,” he warned.
“Access is shrinking, funding is desperately short and the fighting is intensifying.
“Humanitarian access must be granted and the world must stop looking away from Sudan’s children.”
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and triggered what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan, said the country was “facing multiple disease outbreaks: including cholera, malaria, dengue, measles, in addition to malnutrition.”
At the same time, health workers and health infrastructure are increasingly in the crosshairs, he told reporters.
Since the war began, the WHO has verified 205 attacks on health care, leading to 1,924 deaths.
And the attacks are growing deadlier by the year.
In 2025, 65 attacks caused 1,620 deaths, and in the first 40 days of this year, four attacks led to 66 deaths.
Fighting has intensified in the southern Kordofan region.
“We have to be proactive and to pre-position supplies, to deploy our teams on the ground to be prepared for any situation,” Sahbani said.
“But all this contingency planning... it’s a small drop in the sea.”
