By Raya Jalabi
BAGHDAD, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Ali says he has seen more than 50 people killed in front of him since anti-government protests began in Iraq last month.
"The first one was shocking - he was someone I knew, and they shot him in the chest," said Ali, in his early 20s and from Baghdad's low-income Sadr City district.
"But you quickly get used to death ... I've seen people, some of them friends, choke, drown, have their skulls split open by tear gas and stun grenades," Ali, who declined to give his last name, said as he played a mobile phone video of the shooting victim in his final moments in the capital's Tahrir Square last month.
"We can't even cry over their bodies any more."
Since the start of October, more than 250 Iraqis have been killed protesting against a government they see as corrupt and beholden to foreign interests, according to eyewitnesses and medical and security sources.
There was no immediate comment from the interior ministry, which oversees many of the security forces, but a government report said nearly 150 people were killed in the first week of the unrest, 70% from bullets to the head or chest.
Recounting stories of his fallen comrades, Ali leaned against a mound of dirty blankets on the Tigris river bank under the Jumhuriya – or Republic – Bridge.
For the past 10 days, hundreds of young men and boys – some as young as 12 – have been camped out on the bridge, and under it. Wearing construction hats, gas masks, and chanting for the downfall of the government, they call themselves "the front line of the revolution".
The bridge, which leads from the square to Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, where government buildings and foreign embassies are located, has seen fierce clashes between protesters and security forces.
Protesters, armed with slingshots, have erected barricades of iron sheets and concrete blocks. Security forces have used rubber bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas against them, killing scores on the adjacent Jumhuriya and Sinak bridges.
Both sides have settled into an uneasy stalemate.
"We throw rocks at them, and they respond by killing us," said Ali, as several tear gas canisters were lobbed by security forces.
BOYS UNDER THE BRIDGE
A group of medical volunteers have set up camp to help the wounded. They say the expired tear gas – Reuters saw used canisters with an expiry date of 2014 – is making people choke.
One young man, barefoot and wearing a dirty tank top and trousers, passed out after choking on the gas. A Reuters correspondent saw medics lower him off the bridge and put him in a tuk-tuk headed for a nearby hospital.