About 200 people have died and hundreds more have been injured in widespread rioting in Algeria over the past five days, police and hospital sources said Sunday. Most of the deaths came in clashes between the army and demonstrators in the southern and eastern suburbs of Algiers, in the western port city of Oran and in a dozen other provincial centers, the sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity. Rioters have been protesting the government's austerity policies and escalating prices. Interior Minister El Hadi Khediri said in a televised address Saturday night that members of the security forces were among the dead, but he gave no figures. Bachir Rouiz, the information minister, told a news conference Saturday that too many authorities were involved to give an accurate official list of casualties. The police and hospital sources gave casualty accounts amounting to at least 200 killed, with many hundred wounded. The largest number of casualties appeared to come from Kouba on the southern fringes of Algiers, where witnesses said the army shot directly into the crowd Saturday night after people ignored repeated calls to disperse. The army used heavy machine guns mounted on tanks and jeeps in Kouba, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity. Hospital sources there later reported more than 60 dead. The government announced Friday night and later repeated that soldiers had orders to fire on protesters defying a ban on demonstrations under a state of emergency proclaimed Thursday.
