Manama, April 28: Newly-released footage shows Saudi-backed Bahraini forces using poison gas against anti-government protesters in the tiny Persian Gulf country.
Similar footage had previously come out of Bahrain showing the brutality of Bahraini and Saudi forces against peaceful anti-government protesters.
Meanwhile, medical staff at a Bahraini hospital said they received a patient suffering from a serious condition caused by poison gas that was reportedly used by Bahraini forces.
Earlier on Wednesday, witnesses said Saudi-backed Bahraini forces also attacked a medical center in the eastern town of Sitra, arresting several people.
The latest attacks came while the Manama regime denies reports by a number of human rights groups that Bahraini forces were engaged in raiding hospitals, torturing doctors and injuring anti-government protesters in an effort to quell mass protest rallies.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), Doctors Without Borders, and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) have charged Bahraini security officials with systematic attacks on doctors and patients.
PHR says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces and riot police” in the crackdowns on anti-government protesters.
“The excessive use of force against unarmed civilians, patients in hospitals and medical personnel that PHR’s investigators documented is extremely troubling and is cause for an immediate international investigation,” said Hans Hogrefe, an official of the PHR.
More than 30 protesters have been killed and scores of others injured since the anti-government protests began in Bahrain in mid-February.
Many journalists, bloggers, doctors, lawyers and opposition activists have also been arrested as part of a widespread crackdown on the anti-regime demonstrations.
Protesters, who demand an end to the 40-year rule of Bahrain’s Al Khalifa dynasty, have nevertheless, vowed to continue their street rallies until their demands for freedom, constitutional monarchy as well as a proportional voice in the government are met.
——Agencies