Shafaq News- Basra
Demonstrators gathered on Sunday outside the Kuwaiti consulate in Basra, Iraq's southernmost province, to protest the killing of the Iraqi fisherman Najm Abdullah Khaled by the Kuwaiti coast guard, and to demand the protection of Iraqi fishermen working in the northern Gulf.
Protesters arrived in front of the consulate building on the Shatt al-Arab corniche, the waterway that runs through the city. Riot police were deployed in large numbers around the site.
Last Thursday, three Iraqi fishermen who had been held in Kuwait crossed back into Iraq through the Safwan border crossing: Hassan Khaled Hassan, Jaafar Hassan Abdul-Zahra, and Majid Mohammed Khaled. The body of Khaled was returned alongside them, together with Thaer Mohammed Salman, a fisherman wounded in the head. The incident drew public anger in Basra and across Iraq.
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs disclosed that the case was raised in a meeting with the Kuwaiti leadership, which presented video footage of the circumstances of the incident, adding that the Kuwaiti force did not intend to cause loss of life.