A teenager died in Bahrain on Wednesday after being hit by a tear gas cannister fired by security forces trying to disperse a protest overnight, a rights group said.
The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights said on its website that Ali Jawad Ahmad, 14, was injured after security forces used “excessive force” against demonstrators in the small Gulf Arab state.
A police official told the state news agency BNA that the incident was being investigated, without saying how the boy was injured.
“There was no reported police action against law-breakers … at the time the boy’s death was reported, except dispersing a small group of around 10 people at 1:15am,” the agency quoted the official as saying.
Small scale protests and clashes with security forces frequently break out in areas where the majority Shi’ite population live after the Sunni-dominated government crushed a pro-democracy movement earlier this year.
Around 30 people were killed during the protests and ensuing crackdown.
Saudi and UAE troops helped US-allied Bahrain stamp out protests it says were driven by Shi’ite sectarian motivations and instigated by non-Arab Shi’ite power Iran across the Gulf. Opposition groups deny this.
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