Protests erupted across many of Jordan's cities and provincial towns against the government's coronavirus restrictions, a day after oxygen ran out at a state hospital leading to the deaths of at least nine Covid-19 patients, witnesses said on Sunday.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in defiance of a night curfew in the the city of Al Salt, where the deaths occurred, several other provincial cities, and in a neighbourhood of the capital Amman. Protesters also gathered further south in Karak city and the port city of Aqaba.
"Down with the government. We don't fear coronavirus," hundreds of youths chanted in the northern city of Irbid.
The deaths in Al Salt have added to anger over tighter restrictions that include extending a night curfew to stem a major surge of infections driven by a more contagious variant of the virus.
Jordan's economy has been particularly hard hit by the shutdowns, with unemployment surging to a record 24 per cent and poverty deepening. It witnessed its worst contraction in decades last year.
Demonstrators who blamed the government for worsening economic conditions also called for an end to emergency laws enacted at the start of the pandemic last year that limit civil and political rights.
Prime Minister Bisher Al Khasawneh fired the health minister and said he bore full responsibility for the deaths in Al Salt, which exposed gross negligence in the state health system when medical staff failed to act after oxygen ran out for two hours.
King Abdullah visited the hospital after the deaths on Saturday and replaced the health minister.
"I am here because of the catastrophe. We want to put on trial those responsible for this and then bring down the government," Ahmad Hiyari, a demonstrator among hundreds of angry residents near the Al Salt hospital, told Reuters.
