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After a third night of protests in Belarus, the Interior Ministry says police fired live ammunition when they came under attack in the southwestern city of Brest.
Protesters with metal rods targeted officers and police opened fire in self-defense, the ministry said.
Raids were also reported in Minsk and other cities, after opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya fled.
A BBC crew was attacked by police, who are accused of brutality.
The protests erupted hours after Belarus’s leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner of Sunday’s presidential vote, which was condemned by the EU as “neither free nor fair”.
EU ‘considers sanctions’
Mr Lukashenko won 80% of the vote on Sunday, according to election officials, but there were widespread allegations of vote rigging. Josep Borrell, EU foreign policy minister, said Belarus had “shown the desire for democratic change” in the election campaign.
The Foreign Minister says EU foreign ministers will meet on Friday to discuss imposing sanctions on Belarus.
Lithuanian President Gintanas Nauseda said on Wednesday that Lithuania, Poland and Latvia were ready to mediate between the Belarussian government and the opposition, on condition that the Belarussian authorities stop violence against Protestants, release arrested protesters and form a national council with members. of civil society.
- How messenger app surrounding Belarus news
“If our initiative is met in a negative way, the other resources will obviously remain on the table – and that is sanctions, both at European level and at national level,” President Nauseda told reporters in Vilnius.
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Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck
When Ms Tikhanovskaya went to the election committee to complain about the results that gave her just 10% of the vote, she was detained for seven hours. By Tuesday morning, she had left Belarus for neighboring Lithuania.
Mr. Borrell accused authorities of using “disproportionate and unacceptable violence that caused at least one death and many injuries”.
Websites, which have been set up in Belarus for days, were widely reported Wednesday morning to be back online. State TV did not say much about the protests and two attendees announced their dismissal.
There have been several reports of police violence. One protest was killed and 200 others were injured, some seriously, and thousands more detained.
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Women in Minsk on Wednesday sought the support of detained Protestants
On Tuesday night alone, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova said more than 1,000 people were detained and a number of police and security forces injured in unrest in Minsk and other major cities.
In Brest, police were targeted by a “group of aggressive citizens”; “Firearms were used to protect the lives and health of employees,” she said.
The brutality of the crackdown has shocked observers. The official newspaper Belarus Segodnya, however, said that the protest was detained “coordinators”, including one resident of Minsk said to organize the “mass disturbances” of a hotel room.
On the stage in the capital
By Abdujalil Abdurasulov, BBC News, Minsk
Protestants gathered spontaneously on Tuesday night at Kmetaya Gorka metro station in central Minsk which soon turned into a battlefield of new collisions.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck.
Some people fell while trying to escape, but were quickly picked up by others running behind. Police chased them into the yards of apartment blocks where many were trying to hide.
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Protestants have accused riot police of brutality
When they were caught with fleeing Protestants, officers surrounded them and beat them violently with batons. Residents looked out of their windows at gunmen and swore at officers, shouting to get them to leave.
Someone even threw a wooden ladder at call police who hit a man under their window.
Earlier, our BBC team was also attacked by men dressed in black, who turned out to be security forces.
“Take the camera away,” they roared as they approached us. We showed her our accreditation by government, but one of the officers ripped our colleague’s card from her neck, took her camera and tried to break it.
When we demanded that the accreditation document be returned, one of them pulled his stick out at us and our remaining camera. Fortunately, none of the team was seriously injured and the camera remained intact.
Several other journalists in Minsk also reported harassment and intimidation by security forces on Tuesday night.
Opposition website Tut.by said journalists were being held in the cities of Brest and Grodno, as well as in the capital.
Many had their equipment broken or confiscated. Tut.by said her own reporter and cameraman were targeted.
Mr Lukashenko, 65, who has ruled the former Soviet Union since 1994, described opposition leaders as “sheep” controlled from abroad. He later also claimed that most Protestants were unemployed, Belta reported, telling them “in a friendly way” to get jobs.
There were some reports of workers going on strike, but state media said it was false news.
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Protesters called on Belarusian authorities not to use force
A presenter for Belarus 1 TV, Sergey Kozlovich, announced his resignation, but gave no reason for it. Meanwhile, Tanya Borodkina, an STV presenter, said she was disappointed because she “could no longer smile in the air”. “Do not be afraid,” they tell Belarusians on Facebook. “Do not forget our children about their future!”
A crowd of more than 100 people gathered outside a prison in Minsk waiting for news about their detained relatives and friends.
What happened to the opposition?
Former teacher Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, 37, was a stay-at-home mom until she entered the race after her husband was arrested and blocked from registering for the vote.
She was one of three women who gathered their resources to spare the opposition. Veronika Tsepkalo fled Belarus on polling day and Maria Kolesnikova remains in Belarus.
According to an associate, Ms Tikhanovskaya was escorted out of the country by authorities as part of a deal to allow the release of her campaign manager, Maria Moroz, who was arrested on Friday night.
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After arriving in Lithuania, a video appeared online in which she targeted broadcasters (in Russian), stating that she was estimating her own power.
“I thought this campaign really stole me and gave me so much power that I could handle anything,” she said. “But I think I’m still the same weak woman I was.”
“Not one life is worth what is happening now,” she added. “Children are the most important things in our lives.” Ms Tikhanovskaya had sent her children to Lithuania for the elections for safety.
A second video appeared later that appeared to have been made during her detention. The images show her, with her head bowed, nervously reading from a script, while urging her supporters to “follow the law” and stay away from street protests.
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Mr. Lukashenko cast his ballot at a polling station in Minsk
Before Sunday’s election, crowds flocked to opposition matches, with Belarus angry in part because of the Lukashenko government’s response to coronavirus.
The president has downplayed the outbreak, advising citizens to drink vodka and use saunas to fight the disease.
