8 DEAD AS A RESULT OF DISORDERS IN YEREVAN
DeFacto Agency
March 3 2008
Armenia
YEREVAN, 03.03.08. DE FACTO. According to the RA Ministry of Public
Health, 8 people were killed as a result of disorders carried out
by Levon Ter-Petrossian’s supporters March 1 in Yerevan’s central
streets. RA General Procurator’s Office ascertains the circumstances
of the people’s death.
According to the information circulated by the RA Police, the
crowd gathered March 1 in the vicinity of the Yerevan City Hall,
gradually got out of control; in the evening the actions of the
meeting’s participants developed into pogroms and plundering. In the
course of mass disorders in neighboring streets gangster-like groups,
cutting off a crowd of seven thousand people, set fire to over twenty
private cars, police cars and ambulances. Buses and trolleybuses
were destroyed. As a result of illegal actions the House of Moscow,
shops and offices nearby were plundered. Windows in the Yerevan City
Hall and VivaCell Company were smashed.
The meeting’s participants also provoked clashes with law-enforcement
officers, there are casualties. 33 policemen were taken to the RA
Police hospital, 11 of them with fragmentation wounds, 13 with traumas
of various degree of gravity, 8 poisoned with gas and 1 unconscious.
The number of casualties taken to other medical institutions of the
city is verified.