The high price of the Iraqi "revolution", one year after its outbreak

One year after the massive protests that shook Iraq between October 2019 and March 2020, some of the demonstrators' demands have been met as a change of government, but they have also had to pay a high price, with thousands of people injured or killed.

The protests erupted on 1 October 2019 and continued intermittently in November and December, gradually fading away in March with the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Iraq.

According to Ali Al Bayati, a member of the independent Iraqi Human Rights Commission, the fatalities of the protests amount to 560, including 17 members of the security forces and the rest demonstrators..

In addition, 24,000 people were injured of varying degrees of severity, according to the Commission's count, which includes the victims recorded between October 2019 and March 2020.

The activist Ahmed al Rikabi tells Efe how he lost his best friend, Safaa Al Saray, who became one of the icons of the "October revolution".

The activist Ahmed al Rikabi tells Efe how he lost his best friend, Safaa Al Saray, who became one of the icons of the "October revolution".

"He always went with him to all the protests since 2011; first against the government of (then Prime Minister) Nuri al Maliki and then the demonstrations in 2015 during the g"Each of them has his own story and a sad memory that will accompany him," he adds, recounting how he saw a paramedic who was helping a wounded man at Baghdad's Al Ahrar Bridge get shot.

"There was a paramedic next to me and at that moment the riot police arrived, then the paramedic ran to help a wounded man and shot him directly in the head," he says.

Apart from the deaths and injuries, some 2,870 demonstrators ended up in "official prisons", Al Bayati told Efe, although most have been released to date, except for a few against whom legal proceedings have been initiated. Furthermore, 75 demonstrators and activists were kidnapped, and only 25 have been released, while the rest "are still missing," he adds.

There were also 64 assassination attempts that resulted in the deaths of 22 demonstrators, according to Al Bayati. Civil society and human rights activists and organisations have pointed to militias, mostly affiliated with Iran, as being behind the kidnappings and killings, although those responsible have never been proven or punished.

Last May, the United Nations Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) reported that 123 people were kidnapped between 1 October 2019 and 21 March 2020 as part of the protests. According to a UNAMI report, these abductions could involve "armed actors with a substantial level of organisation and access to resources", although the data does not indicate that the Iraqi security forces are behind them.

The government of the Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa Al Kazemi, has promised, since taking office in July, to investigate these events and punish those responsible for the violence against the demonstrators, though for the time being justice has not been done.overnment of Haider al Abadi, and those in October 2019," he says. According to Al Rikabi, some "800 martyrs" lost their lives in last year's protests, in addition to 25,000 injured and dozens of disappeared and arrested people.

But the activist believes that, despite the bloodshed, some progress has been made, such as "overthrowing the government of sniper Adel Abdelmahdi", who resigned at the end of November, forced onto the streets and for particularly violent days in the south of the country. Meanwhile, another activist, Ali Abdelsattar, regrets having lost "many loved ones, friends and brothers during the demonstrations".