Russian servicemen board a military aircraft on their way to Kazakhstan, at an airfield outside Moscow, Russia, on Thursday. Photo by Russian Defense Ministry/EPA-EFE
Jan. 6 (UPI) — A number of protesters and law enforcement officers were killed during more violence in Kazakhstan on Thursday and rioters broke into government buildings and set some on fire, officials said.
The clashes continued overnight after days of civil unrest, which began as a demonstration against rising fuel prices but signal wider discontent among citizens of the country of 19 million.
After the city hall in the capital Almaty city hall was set afire and the Kazakhstan airport was overrun on Wednesday, police opened fire on the angry mob. Internet service was blacked out nationwide amid rising calls for the removal of the authoritarian government.
Demonstrators are seen on Wednesday in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Protests have been going for a few days and have risen in intensity. They began as a show of disapproval over the doubling of fuel prices. Photo by EPA-EFE
A Russian-led military alliance sent peacekeepers to Kazakhstan overnight to help stabilize the unrest, which began days ago as a protest against the rising cost of liquefied petroleum gas.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an alliance consisting of forces from Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, to intervene.
The unrest is believed to be the worst Kazakhstan has seen since it declared independence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Tokayev has declared a state of emergency in Almaty until at least Jan. 19.