Over 130 injured as police use tear gas against protesters in Bosnia

PanARMENIAN.Net - More than 130 people, most of them policemen, were injured when police used tear gas and clashed with Bosnian demonstrators angry over the dire economic situation in a country where unemployment tops more than 44 percent, officials said, according to Agence France-Presse.

"Thirty protestors and 104 policemen were admitted during the day at the emergency services" in the northeastern town of Tuzla where the protests erupted Thursday, Feb 6 hospital spokesman Adis Nisic told AFP.

Most injuries were caused by "heavy objects" or were "eye-iritation by tear gas," Nisic said.

Earlier reports said 32 people were hurt, including two policeman seriously injured during scuffles in Tuzla, once one of the main industrial hubs in the former Yugoslav republic.

Fresh clashes erupted later Thursday between several hundred protestors and the police, who sprayed each other with tear gas, Nisic said.

Police managed to disperse the crowd, but some protestors remained hiding in hallways and alleys in the centre of Tuzla, regional TV station RTVTK reported.

Thousands of demonstrators had gathered -- more than 2,000 according to police, while local media said there were 7,000 -- for a second day of protest against Bosnia's economic woes.

Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds as demonstrators tried to break into regional government offices in Tuzla and threw stones.

"We have nothing to eat, and you?" said one of the placards carried by protestors.

Tuzla police spokesman Izudin Saric told AFP that "26 policeman, two of them seriously, and six protestors were injured". Eight protestors were arrested, Saric said.

It followed protests on Wednesday, when 14 people, mostly policemen, were also injured in Tuzla, while 22 people were arrested. Most were released Thursday, while three remained in custody.

Protesters accuse the authorities of fraudulently privatising a number of factories once owned by the state and demand payment of salary arrears, which they claim have been delayed for months.