Ukraine death toll rises dramatically

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

A shaky truce crumbled Thursday as gunfire erupted at Independence Square, the center of anti-government protests and an increasingly violent crisis that has left dozens dead and hundreds injured in recent days.

At least 100 people have died and 500 have been injured since Thursday morning, the head of the protesters' medical service told CNN.

The Ukrainian government has not released an updated figure, but the interior ministry said earlier that one police officer was among the dead.

It's unclear what prompted the gunfire just hours after the government declared a truce. But CNN crews at the scene reported that as security forces were moving away from the area, a group of protesters pursued them, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/20/world/europe/ukraine-protests/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

[pampango]

1. One policeman dead per the interior ministry. Several dozen protesters dead.

When the bullets flew, several demonstrators fell to the ground. Protesters grabbed the wounded by their clothes or limbs, and carried many of them to a hotel lobby at one end of the square that had been converted into a triage center.

Bodies, covered in bloodied sheets, lay on the floor. Orthodox priests prayed over them.

Medical workers had no chance to save many of those who died, said Olga Bogomolets, a doctor.

"They were shot directly to their hearts, their brain and to their neck," she said.

"The Guardian’s Ian Traynor in Kiev witnessed four police snipers, two of whom fired live rounds at protesters.

“I saw marksmen firing from automatic weapons with telescopic sights,” Ian said in a telephone update. He also reported seeing the bodies of 12 named protesters who had been bought to a makeshift morgue in the lobby of his hotel. All had been shot, according to medics.

The guardian alone can confirm 21 dead, but it is likely to be much higher. I counted 12 corpses in the makeshift morgue, but a doctor said there were 15 here. My colleague Harriet Salem counted nine bodies in a different part of town.

Describing the makeshift morgue in the Ukraina hotel, Ian said: “There are 12 corpses laid out under white sheets. All of them named.” A medic in charge told Ian that all of the dead had been killed by gunshot wounds. “A lot of it was single shot wounds to the head, the neck and the heart. So that would tend to corroborate reports of sharpshooters,” Ian said.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2014/feb/20/ukraine-crisis-new-clashes-strain-truce-live-updates

[pscot]

2. Using snipers against angry citizens

delegitmizes the regime. I was on the fence about this conflict, bu not any more.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. I fear how this ends.