ALMATY: Riots in Kazakhstan’s western Mangistau region, the deadliest in the Central Asian state’s recent history, spread late on Saturday when one person died and 11 people were injured as protesters clashed with police near the village of Shetpe.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev declared a 20-day state of emergency on Saturday in the oil city of Zhanaozen, located in the same region, after at least 11 people were killed there in an outbreak of violence on December 16-17.
Public protests are rare in Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy and biggest oil producer, where 71-year-old Nazarbayev has overseen more than 120 billion dollars in foreign investment during more than two decades in power.
A large group of people supporting Zhanaozen protesters stopped a train carrying more than 300 passengers on Saturday, the Kazakh prosecutor-general’s office said in a statement on Sunday.
Most of them later left but some 50 “hooligans” set the diesel locomotive on fire and moved into the nearby village of Shetpe, setting the New Year tree on fire, smashing shop windows and throwing Molotov cocktails at police, the statement said.
“Taking into account the fact that the hooligans presented a real threat to the life and health of peaceful citizens and policemen, the latter were forced to use weapons,” it said.
One of the twelve people brought to a local hospital with gunshot wounds died later, the statement said.
The unprecedented riots began on Friday when sacked oil workers and sympathetic citizens stormed a stage erected for an Independence Day party and smashed sound equipment in central Zhanaozen, a city of some 90,000 people. They later set fire to the city hall, the headquarters of a local oil company, a hotel and dozens of other buildings, including trade centres and houses, burned cars and buses and plundered ATMs.
Public protests and strikes are banned, while movement around Zhanaozen and access to and from the city is restricted. (UNI)