Dubai: A teenage boy was shot dead during clashes with police in a village near Manama on Thursday, the Bahraini opposition said, amid protests marking the second anniversary of the February 2011 protests in the kingdom.
“The child Hussein Al Jaziri was martyred after he was wounded by shotgun fire in Dia,” Bahrain’s major Shiite opposition bloc Al Wefaq announced on Twitter.
A source from Al Wefaq’s media centre reached by telephone confirmed the death.
It is unclear what caused the death of the 16-year-old, but the DPA news agency reported that he was shot with birdshot, citing witnesses.
The ministry of interior said in a statement on its Twitter account that the police operations room had been notified by Salmaniya Hospital that one person had been “brought in with injuries, but it turned out he had later died”.
The ministry added that rioters had blocked a number of roads in the island kingdom and security forces were seeking to restore order.
Several clashes were reported since early morning in Bahrain as a culmination of a protest movement launched by Al Wefaq days ago to mark the second anniversary of the events that unfolded in Bahrain on February 14, 2011.
Plans included daily afternoon demonstrations in several areas and refraining from spending money on Thursday by avoiding banks, shops and petrol stations. Bahraini authorities have urged citizens and expatriates to report “any threats or forceful attempts to restrict their freedoms.”
Although schools remained officially open, several students opted not to go to class.
The clashes between protesters and the police are taking place despite the launch of a national dialogue that brought together representatives from the opposition societies, other formations from the political landscape, the parliament and the government to charter a way out of the political deadlock.
Participants said that the two initial sessions on Sunday and on Wednesday were positive and that a feel-good atmosphere prevailed although the pace of the talks was slow. The next session will be held on Wednesday after the participants agreed to a request by the opposition to skip the Sunday meeting.
Dialogue sessions are scheduled for Sunday and Wednesday from 4 to 8 pm. No timeframe has been set for the conclusion of the talks.
- with inputs from Habib Toumi, Bahrain Bureau Chief, Reuters, AFP and DPA
