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Hundreds of demonstrators invaded the Parliament of Abkhazia, a pro-Russian separatist region of Georgia, on Friday to denounce a recent investment agreement concluded with Moscow, reports the Russian news agency TASS.
While MPs were to vote on the ratification of this agreement signed in October in Moscow, demonstrators gathered in front of Parliament used a truck to break down the security gates placed around the building located in the capital Sukhumi.
On video images broadcast by TASS, we see demonstrators rushing into the courtyard of Parliament in numbers. Other images on Telegram show protesters trying to unseal the gates using ropes.
According to emergency services, at least nine people were taken to hospital.
The session of Parliament was canceled and the Abkhazian presidency said in a statement that the agreement would be abandoned.
An opposition leader, Temour Goulia, told Reuters that the demonstrators initially only demanded the withdrawal of the agreement but that they now intended to obtain the resignation of the president of the self-proclaimed republic, Aslan Bjania.
The agreement signed in October by Russian Economy Minister Maxime Rechetnikov and his Abkhazian counterpart Kristina Ozgan should allow Russian companies to invest in projects in Abkhazia, with its detractors seeing it as an attack on the sovereignty of the region and fearing to lose their properties.
In Moscow, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was following developments in Sukhumi with concern and estimated that today's events would discourage foreign investments in Abkhazia.
(Filipp Lebedev and Lucy Papachristou in London, with the Moscow office; French version Mara Vîlcu and Tangi Salaün, edited by Sophie Louet and Blandine Hénault)
