Algerian police and protesters clashed violently in Algiers yesterday during a massive ethnic Berber-led protest against the government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
The police were seen firing live bullets on protesters in the port area, where some had begun looting warehouses. It was not known whether the shooting, which came from a police vehicle, caused any casualties.
Other clashes occurred at the May 1st Square, where police had formed a cordon to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from marching on Mr Bouteflika's offices in protest against alleged state repression in the north-eastern Berber homeland of Kabylie. Protesters tried to break through the cordon by throwing stones at police, who responded by firing teargas and using water cannons.
Two Algerian journalists were run over by a bus driven by a demonstrator and killed, police said. The bus was speeding out of a blazing garage.
Local newspapers had forecast that up to two million people would join the protest, which came against a backdrop of rapidly rising discontent with Mr Bouteflika's rule that has led to rioting in Kabylie and other parts of the north-east.
From early morning ethnic Berbers streamed into Algiers from Kabylie, crowded in cars, trucks and buses. They were joined by residents of Algiers sympathetic to their cause and angry with Mr Bouteflika.
Most of them were youths, some raising black flags as a sign of mourning and displaying a painted "Z" on their backs or chests to represent the Berber language, Tamazight. Others held portraits of the Berber singer Matoub Lounes - a critic of both the government and the Islamic fundamentalist movement in Algeria who was killed by unknown assailants in 1998 - and chanted his songs.
Demonstrators pulled new cars, vans, minibuses and trucks out of warehouses and burned them, according to one report. Many other fires were started, including fires at a bus terminal and a government building. An international fair opened by the president on Wednesday had to close in the face of the protests.
Berber discontent has been fuelled by resentment over unemployment, lack of adequate housing and the role of the paramilitary police in Kabylie.
Rioting in Kabylie, which began in April and continued for six weeks, left between 60 and 80 people dead, according to unofficial estimates.