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Bursts of gunfire echoed through the streets of Kazakhstan’s largest city on Thursday as Moscow-led troops arrived to help quell mass unrest that left dozens dead and hundreds detained.
Fighting in Almaty continued a day after protesters stormed several government buildings, with an AFP correspondent hearing regular eruptions of gunfire from the direction of a central square.
Local media reports said security forces had cleared demonstrators from the square and other key government buildings, but there were also reports of gunfire elsewhere in the city.
The first units of Russian forces from a Moscow-led peacekeeping force had meanwhile arrived in Kazakhstan, the Russian defence ministry said, after the Kazakh government appealed for help.
Long seen as one the most stable of the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia, energy-rich Kazakhstan is facing its biggest crisis in decades after days of protests over rising fuel prices escalated into widespread unrest.
Armed protesters have fought running battles with government forces, with officials saying 748 security officers have been wounded and 18 killed, including two who had their heads cut off.
‘So terrifying’
Burnt-out vehicles littered Almaty’s streets, several government buildings were in ruins and bullet casings were strewn over the grounds of the presidential residence, which was stormed and looted by protesters on Wednesday.
“I didn’t know our people could be so terrifying,” Samal, a 29-year-old nursery-school teacher, told AFP near the residence.
Under increasing pressure, President…
Source : france24
