Nur-Sultan Kazakhstan - January 8 ANI Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered security forces to kill without warning to crush the violent protests that reportedly left dozens dead.
On Friday, Kazakh state media reported that 18 security personnel and 26 armed criminals had been killed in violent protests, according to CNN.
More than 3,800 people have been arrested so far, according to the country's Internal Affairs Ministry. More than 100 people were arrested while carrying out terrorist acts, according to the state media.
In Almaty, the country's largest city, several dead bodies riddled with bullets lay in the streets and the air was repeatedly filled with gunfire, according to a journalist in the area.
In a defiant public address Friday, Tokayev said that the unrest began earlier this week as protests against rising fuel prices had been masterminded by well-trained terrorist bandits from both inside and outside the country.
Tokayev said the situation had stabilized in Almaty and that the introduction of a state of emergency is yielding results. But he said that terrorists continue to damage state and private property and use weapons against citizens. I gave the order for law enforcement agencies and the army to open fire without warning, according to CNN.
Tokayev doubled down on that rhetoric on Twitter later, writing 20,000 gangsters and terrorists were involved in six waves of attacks in Almaty this week and saying: No talks with the terrorists, we must kill them. Three large military checkpoints have been set up, according to the journalist who told CNN that the government has control over the centre of Almaty near the president's residence and mayor's office.
Military forces shoot into the air if anyone goes near the checkpoints. It is not clear whether they are shooting live or rubber rounds, the journalist said.
Tokayev's speech attempted to undermine the narrative that the demonstrations were a product of popular unrest that turned increasingly destructive and deadly.
Several protesters who spoke to international media dissented from that characterization.
One woman said that we are not thugs nor terrorists. The government is rich but all of these people here have loans to pay, according to a man who told CNN that people want the truth. We have our pain, and we want to share it. The demonstrations are the biggest challenge for the autocrats, with initial public anger over a rise in fuel prices and wider discontent with the government over corruption, living standards, poverty and unemployment in the oil-rich nation, as well as the COVID 19 epidemic, according to experts.