Anti-government protesters thronged the streets of Algeria’s capital and other cities on Friday, saying moves by top loyalists to abandon ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika were not enough.
While there were no official figures, security sources said hundreds of thousands turned out in Algiers and that marches were held in at least 36 of the North African country’s 48 provinces.
For a sixth successive Friday, the huge numbers turned out despite a string of loyalists deserting the president and calling for him to step down and make way for a government-led change of leadership.
Activists angrily rejected those moves as desperate bids by key figures in Bouteflika’s entourage to salvage their own grip on power and demanded that they too quit.
“Bouteflika you go, take Gaid Salah with you,” and “FLN out” protesters in the capital shouted, referring to the armed forces chief of staff and the president’s party.
Crowds of demonstrators, many of them young but also including army veterans of Algeria’s 1990s civil war, packed the square outside the main post office, which has become the epicentre of protests.
“We’re fed up with those in power,” the demonstrators chanted. “We want a new…
