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Bahrain protesters
In the Bahrain capital Manama, an anti-government protester is carried to a vehicle to be taken to a hospital after being wounded as soldiers fired teargas and shot heavy weapons into the air. Photograph: AP
In the Bahrain capital Manama, an anti-government protester is carried to a vehicle to be taken to a hospital after being wounded as soldiers fired teargas and shot heavy weapons into the air. Photograph: AP

Bahrain soldiers fire on protesters

This article is more than 13 years old
At least one person dies during anti-monarchy unrest
Britain accused of supplying crowd control equipment

At least one person has been killed and dozens injured in Bahrain after soldiers fired teargas and shot into the air as hundreds of protesters marched towards Pearl roundabout, the scene of violent clashes on Thursday.

A man who was taken with gunshot wounds to Salmaniya hospital in Manama died, according to eyewitnesses.

Hospital officials said at least 20 people were injured, some seriously. Ambulance sirens were heard throughout central Manama, the capital.

Dr Ghassan from Salmaniya hospital in Manama told al-Jalzeera TV that the hospital was full of casualties. "All the medical staff are running off their feet. It's hard to accommodate all these casualties; we are full. It's unbelievable scenes, it's indescribable," he said.

He said it was unclear how many people had died or sustained injuries, but said protesters had been hit by teargas and bullets. "It's very difficult to count the number of casualties. They were thrown on the road; there are tens if not hundreds of people still on the road. The ambulances can't access them," he said. "These people are innocent; they don't hold machine guns, they don't hold swords, they are innocent protesters."

An Associated Press cameraman saw army units shooting anti-craft weapons above the protesters in apparent warning shots as well as making attempts to drive them back from security cordons about 200 yards from the roundabout, where at least five people were killed and 230 injured on Thursday night.

The security forces looked upon the march as a significant challenge to their authority and responded harshly.

After turning back demonstrators, riot police fired teargas rounds at the hospital where the injured had been taken, causing momentary panic. The latest clash came hours after funeral mourners and worshippers at Friday prayers hurled abuse at the monarchy.

The cries against King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and his inner circle at a Shia mosque and at funerals reflected an escalation of the protests. What began as calls for mild political reform has now turned into a direct challenge to the monarchy itself.

"The regime has broken something inside of me. All of these people gathered today have had something broken in them," Ahmed Makki Abu Taki, who was at the funeral for his 23-year-old brother, Mahmoud, told the Associated Press. "We used to demand for the prime minister to step down, but now our demand is for the ruling family to get out."

Barack Obama's administration has expressed "strong displeasure" about the rising tensions in Bahrain, which is host to the US navy's fifth fleet.

"We believe that people have universal rights, including the right to peaceful assembly," the White House said, "so we continue to urge the government of Bahrain to show restraint in responding to peaceful protests."

A human rights group has urged Britain to suspend arms exports to the small gulf kingdom. The UK has licensed hundreds of cartridges of teargas and other riot control equipment for export to Bahrain in the last nine months and the government said it was urgently reviewing its licensing decisions.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, said there was no evidence Bahrain was using British-made products to crack down on protesters.

But Oliver Sprague, arms programme director of human rights organisation Amnesty International, said: "The government's own figures clearly show the UK has recently licensed crowd control equipment to Bahrain including teargas, assault rifles and machine guns.

"After what we've seen in Bahrain's Pearl roundabout, it looks as if the government's risk-assessment system has been found wanting," he said. "There have got to be much tighter checks when arms and security equipment is being despatched in cases like this. We need to see an immediate suspension of any further shipments of equipment that could end up being used to violently suppress peaceful protests in Bahrain, or for that matter in countries like Libya, Yemen or Jordan."

Hague had earlier said the UK's "strict" export criteria aimed to prevent weapons being provided for internal repression.

"We have no evidence that they have been used," he told Radio 4's Today programme, adding: "I'm not relaxed about it – we have very strict export licensing criteria in this country. The review we ordered yesterday will be completed today and take into account the events of yesterday morning."

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