Wounded Madagascar Gen Z tell of brutal security crackdown

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ANTANANARIVO - Mirana has spent nearly two weeks lying on her stomach after a tear gas canister tore through her lower back, unwittingly making her a symbol of the hundreds injured in Madagascar's youth-led unrest.

"The first canister knocked me to the ground. The second, I don't know if it landed on me or just beside me, but it ripped into the top of my buttock," said the 19-year-old, conjuring the memories from her hospital bed in the capital, Antananarivo, where she is now confined.

An international business student, she was due to start an internship this month.

Like many others, her name has been changed to protect her identity.

She had been standing on the sidewalk, away from the thinning crowd, at the tail end of a protest on the first day of a wave of demonstrations that have rocked the impoverished Indian Ocean island.

Then, a police pickup came speeding down the street. Gendarmes in the back opened fire -- twice -- in her direction, said the scooter-loving K-pop fan.

The protests, initially sparked by relentless water and power outages, have since grown into a broader revolt against misgovernance, mobilised largely by an online youth movement. They are now demanding President Andry Rajoelina's resignation.

"There was a lot of blood, it was a deep cut," said Mirana, clutching a Garfield plush toy at the Joseph Ravoahangy Andrianavalona Hospital.

"When they came by, we were calm. We didn't do anything. We were just resting. Plus, I was already on the ground. My face was bleeding. I was trying to get up when they threw the second shot at me," she said.

Videos and photos, shared thousands of times on social media, corroborate her account.

That second shot left a gaping hole, 15 centimetres deep and 18 centimetres in diameter, according to her sister Rita.

'Forget and move on'

At least 22 people have been killed and hundreds injured since the protests began on September 25, according to the United Nations, which has condemned what it called a heavy-handed response by security forces, including the use of live ammunition.

Mirana's family are grateful she escaped with her life.

"We think the grenade really went off on her," her sister Ariane told AFP.

"The doctors said there was no foreign object left in the wound."

Her torn flesh is now covered with bandages that have to be changed every two days, a painful ordeal each time, said her father Vincent, 67, who witnessed the attack.

"I told her she could only protest if I went with her, that she wouldn't go alone with her friends," said the father of six, who knows protests firsthand.

As a teenager, he took to the streets in 1972 to demand the resignation of Madagascar's first post-independence president, Philibert Tsiranana. He returned to the streets in 2002, during another popular movement calling for the ouster of President Didier Ratsiraka.

For Mirana, it all began with something basic.

"We deal with water and power cuts every single day at home," she said.

"You need electricity to study, we can't do anything without it. And we can't wash, we don't shower. I was speaking up for myself, for my family. I just wanted my voice to be heard."

The family holds onto hope that Mirana's suffering and their fight for justice will not be in vain.

They have launched a Facebook page, "Justice for Mirana", to share her story and press for accountability. It has already drawn more than 1,300 followers.

But no one in government has contacted them, said Ariane.

"It feels like they just want us to forget and move on," she told AFP.