ARBIL: A man was killed in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region late Sunday during protests against power cuts, residents and a medical source told AFP.
Residents in the Rawandz region, north east of Kurdistan’s capital Arbil, said that protesters took to the streets and blocked a main highway leading to a border crossing with Iran.
Security forces intervened to open the road, leading to clashes with protesters, they said.
A medical source in the area’s Ashti hospital said that “the body of a man who was killed by gunshot arrived at the hospital,“ with locals saying he was involved in the protests.
It was not immediately clear how the victim sustained the gunshot, but a protester told AFP that “security forces shot” his relative, a 45-year-old father of ten.
Regional authorities did not comment on the protests.
The northern region of Kurdistan has long promoted itself as a haven of relative stability in an otherwise volatile Iraq.
Last week, regional authorities announced that more than 30 percent of the Kurdistan region now has 24-hour state-provided electricity, but vast areas still suffer from long power cuts forcing many households to rely on private generators.
Despite Iraq’s abundant oil and gas reserves, years of conflict have devastated its infrastructure.
The national grid struggles to meet demand, leaving most areas reliant on imported energy, mostly from neighbouring Iran, and subject to frequent power cuts especially during the blistering summer. – AFP