ANTANANARIVO: The streets were largely deserted in Madagascar’s capital Friday as residents took stock of the damage from a day of violent protests over frequent power cuts and water shortages.
The protest in Antananarivo, led by hundreds of mostly young demonstrators, was met with a heavy police response, with rubber bullets and tear gas used to disperse the crowd.
The rampage continued after nightfall, prompting police to impose a dusk-to-dawn curfew after banks and stores were looted and set on fire. Homes of three pro-government parliamentarians were also torched.
A station of the city’s new cable car system — one of the government’s flagship infrastructure projects — was also set on fire.
Five protesters were killed in the violence, a hospital source said. AFP has not been able to verify the toll from official sources.
Stunned residents — some in tears — assessed the damage Friday morning, an AFP journalist at the scene saw.
A police presence was limited to the city’s main central square unlike Thursday when security forces patrolled the city to block demonstrators from gathering.
Traffic resumed in the city center in the morning, though volumes remained below normal levels.
While the situation appeared calm downtown, reports of looting continued in a commercial district on the outskirts of Antananarivo.
Protesters have voiced anger over persistent water and power cuts, which often leave homes and businesses without electricity for over 12 hours each day across the country.
The Indian Ocean island is one of the poorest countries in the world despite being the leading producer of vanilla, one of the most expensive spices after saffron.
Some people accuse the government of President Andry Rajoelina of failing to improve living conditions.
Rajoelina, 51, was re-elected late last year for a third term in a vote boycotted by the opposition and with less than half of registered voters participating.
He first came to power in 2009, leading a popular movement and benefiting from a coup that ousted former president Marc Ravalomanana.
After not contesting the 2013 election due to international pressure, he was voted back into office in 2018.
Madagascar capital deserted after violent protests
https://arab.news/yq2xe
Madagascar capital deserted after violent protests
- The streets were largely deserted in Madagascar’s capital Friday as residents took stock of the damage from a day of violent protests over frequent power cuts and water shortages
Neighbors of alleged Bondi gunmen shocked by deadly rampage
SYDNEY: Like many people in Sydney, Glenn Nelson spent his Sunday evening watching television coverage of a deadly shooting on the city’s iconic Bondi Beach.
But stepping onto his front porch, flanked by neatly trimmed box hedges, he saw armed police cordoning off the street before raiding the house opposite — home of the two suspects who are alleged to have killed 15 people in Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades.
“I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll catch the rest in the morning,’ the next thing, the drama is out the front door,” he said in an interview on Monday, shortly after mowing his lawn.
Nelson and other neighbors said the family living across the street kept to themselves, but seemed like any other in the suburb of Bonnyrigg, a working-class, well-kept enclave with an ethnically diverse population around 36 km (22 miles) by road from Sydney’s central business district.
Local media named the two suspected gunmen as father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram.
Police have not named the suspects, but they said the older man, 50, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in a critical condition in hospital.
Police said the son was known to authorities and the father had a firearms license.
The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to a woman on Sunday evening who identified herself as the wife and mother of the suspects.
She said the two men had told her they were going on a fishing trip before heading to Bondi and opening fire on an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“I always see the man and the woman and the son,” said 66-year-old Lemanatua Fatu, who lives across the street.
“They are normal people.”
Until Sunday’s shooting, Bonnyrigg was an otherwise unremarkable neighborhood typical of Sydney’s sprawling Western suburbs.
It has significant Vietnamese and Chinese communities, along with many residents who were born in Iraq, Cambodia and Laos, according to government data.
The town center, a strip mall with a large adjoining car park, is flanked by a mosque, a Buddhist temple and several churches.
“It’s a quiet area, very quiet,” Fatu said. “And people mind their own business, doing their own thing — until now.”
Not much is currently known about the suspects’ backgrounds.
A Facebook post from an Arabic and Qur'an studies institute appearing to show one of the men was removed on Monday and no one answered the door at an address listed for it in the neighboring suburb of Heckenberg.
On Monday afternoon, as police took down their cordon, several people re-entered the house, covering their faces. They made no comment to the media and did not answer the door.
