Five protesters were killed and 16 more were injured during a second day of clashes with security forces in Iraq's main southern city Basra, local health and security sources said.
Twenty-two members of the security forces were also wounded, some by a hand grenade, the sources said, in some of the worst unrest reported during months of protests sweeping the long neglected south, heartland of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.
Protesters are angry over electricity outages during the hot Iraqi summer, a lack of jobs and proper government services and entrenched corruption.