At least 11 people killed during protests in Southern Iraq

At least Eleven people were killed during protests overnight in two southern Iraqi cities, including a policeman, police and medical sources said on Thursday.

This raises the death toll to 18 since anti-government protests turned violent two days ago.

Seven protesters and a policeman died in Nassiriya during clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Four more people were killed in the city of Amara, the sources said.

Since erupting in Baghdad on Tuesday, the protests have spread to other cities in the country's south, posing a challenge to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's one-year-old government.

The unrest spread quickly from small-scale protests in Baghdad on Tuesday over jobs, services and government corruption.

Abdul Mahdi ordered a curfew in Baghdad from 5:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Thursday until further notice.

The protests are the biggest against Abdul Mahdi’s government and the biggest in the country since September 2018.

Travelers to and from Baghdad airport, ambulances, government employees in hospitals, electricity, and water departments, and religious pilgrims are exempt from the curfew, the statement said. It was up to provincial governors to decide whether to declare curfews elsewhere.