Pro-opposition gunmen locked in a protracted standoff with police in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Wednesday took four medics hostage, officials said, after a shootout left five people wounded.
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When they first seized the police premises in the Erebuni district of the capital Yerevan on 17 July, the group known as the “Daredevils of Sassoun” killed one police officer and took several hostages, before demanding the release of the jailed opposition leader Zhirair Sefilyan and the resignation of the president Serzh Sargsyan. Riot police use light grenades as they confront anti-government protesters, supporters of the armed group who have been holed inside a police station, clash with police in Yerevan, Armenia, Friday, July 29, 2016. A…
The wounded police officers is placed in a ward, his condition is moderately serious.
Police stabilized the situation outside a police station, which was seized by armed opposition attackers on July 18, after dispersing an opposition rally held in the assailants’ support, TASS reports.
Scores of protesters supporting the radicals have clashed with police cordons surrounding the station, with dozens of injuries reported.
Authorities said they had launched a criminal probe into 23 of the protesters, including a member of the pro-Western Heritage party Armen Martirosyan.
A high-ranking police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information, said the gunmen were hit in the legs by snipers after emerging from the station.
More than 100 people were reportedly detained by police.
Of the 75 people who required medical treatment after Friday night’s violence, 25 of them remained hospitalized, including six law enforcement officers, the Health Ministry said.
The gunfire has ended since then, and negotiations to free the police station are continuing.
Prosecutors on Saturday promised to investigate.
In an earlier Facebook post, Aharonian insisted that security forces are “not conducting any operation” against the armed oppositionists.
“Otherwise special police units are empowered to open fire and to neutralize every armed man at the police station as well as outside it”, the statement said.
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After an exchange of fire before dawn Wednesday two of the gunmen surrendered and one police officer and two gunmen were wounded and taken to hospitals.
