JOIN USA doctor said six people had died in clashes between stone-throwing protesters and police on Sunday in the northern industrial town of Sohar, although Oman’s health minister said only one person died and 20 were injured.
Hundreds of protesters blocked access to an industrial area that includes the port, a refinery and aluminium factory. A port spokeswoman said exports of refined oil products that typically amount to 160,000 barrels per day from the port were unaffected.
“We want to see the benefit of our oil wealth distributed evenly to the population,” one protester said over a loudhailer near the port. “We want to see a scale-down of expatriates in Oman so more jobs can be created for Omanis,” he yelled.
Peaceful protests also spread to other cities, with hundreds of people demonstrating outside a government ministerial complex in Muscat and at another site in the capital. The unrest in Sohar, Oman’s main industrial centre, was a rare outbreak of discontent in the normally sleepy sultanate ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said for four decades, and follows a wave of pro-democracy protests across the Arab world.
The sultan, trying to calm tensions, promised on Sunday to create more jobs, give unemployment benefits and study widening the authority of a quasi-parliamentary advisory council. While hundreds of demonstrators blocked roads near the port, hundreds more were at the main Globe Roundabout, angry after police opened fire on Sunday at protesters demanding political reforms, jobs and better pay.
Graffiti scrawled on a statue said: “The people are hungry”. Another message read: “No to oppression of the people”. Nearby, sidewalks were smashed and office windows broken. Troops deployed around the town but were not intervening to disperse protesters, who pushed back four army vehicles observing the scene near the port.
Protesters loot half-burnt supermarket
Men and women casually looted a smouldering supermarket in Oman’s main industrial centre on Monday, after police disappeared in the wake of violent protests in the normally placid Arab state. “It’s a free for all,” said one man who watched while people grabbed all they could find — from food to metal sheets and electronic goods — and piled their hauls into trolleys at the Lulu Hypermarket at a road junction in the port of Sohar.
All afternoon, women walked in and out of the supermarket taking away food and drinks. One was seen stacking up slightly burned cartons of eggs, powdered milk, orange juice and cream cheese on her trolley and calmly leaving the supermarket. “There’s no security.....I want to live,” said a 28-year-old Omani walking away with 10 bottles of juice in his long traditional Arab robe. Another man dragged a big sheet of aluminium, loading it onto a trolley of food and walking off from the supermarket.