Patrols of security officials have disappeared from the central streets of Alma-Ata, unrest continues in the city, the Izvestia correspondent reports from the scene of events.
According to taxi drivers, neither law enforcement nor military officers are visible anywhere in the city.
At the same time, the demonstrators continue to set fire to fire engines, which come to extinguish the buildings of the mayor’s office and the presidential residence.
According to eyewitnesses, at least three cars burned down.
In addition, protesters are smashing shop windows in the city center, robbing them, and breaking ATM machines.
The commandant’s office of Almaty reported that the radicals caused enormous damage to the city during the riots.
Earlier that day in Alma-Ata, demonstrators tried to seize the Department of Internal Affairs, and before that – to storm the building of the Auezov District Department of Internal Affairs. The administration building and the presidential residence were seized. In addition, the protesters set fire to the building of the prosecutor’s office and the office of the ruling party.
During the riots, according to the latest data provided by the authorities, about 500 people were beaten in Almaty, including 130 women and old people. 120 vehicles were burned, including 33 ambulances and fire trucks.
Kazakh President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev called the protests in the country an act of external aggression. According to the leader of Kazakhstan, the organizers of the protests received extensive training abroad.
He also noted that under any circumstances he will remain in Nur-Sultan, the capital of the republic. A state of emergency has been declared throughout Kazakhstan.
Protests in Kazakhstan began on January 2. Dissatisfied with the rise in the cost of liquefied gas, residents of the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the Mangistau region – an oil-producing region of the republic – went to rallies. Fuel has risen in price from 60 tenge (10 rubles) per liter to 120 (20 rubles per liter).
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