In Shanghai, residents are confronted by police officers who have come to force them to abandon their apartments

Shanghai He’s facing his worst outbreak since The start of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 25 million people trapped since the beginning of April, with difficulties get food. Authorities isolate people who have tested positive, even those who are asymptomatic, by placing them in quarantine centres. But with more than 20,000 new daily positive cases in recent days, they are struggling to keep up.

So, this Thursday, residents China’s economic capital They clashed with police officers who had come to force them to abandon their apartments to isolate people infected with the coronavirus there, according to several videos, a sign of growing discontent with Inflexible policy to combat COVID.

Residents accuse law enforcement of “beating people”

Videos posted on Chinese social network WeChat Thursday night showed residents outside an apartment complex, shouting at police in shields, wearing full protective suits and trying to get past the crowd. In the photos, police officers appear to be arresting several protesters, while residents accuse the police of “beating people”.

The videos caused such an uproar that Zhangjiang Group, the real estate developer of the apartment complex, issued a statement about the incident. “The situation is calm now,” he says, after some tenants “obstructed the construction” of the quarantine fence.

More than 24,000 new positive cases in China

The organization said that the authorities had ordered 39 families to evacuate their apartments “in order to meet the needs of Covid prevention”. In a video broadcast live on WeChat and retrieved by AFP, a crying woman said, “The Zhangjiang group wants to make our apartment complex a place to quarantine and put people with coronavirus there! The investor claims that he offered compensation to the residents and that he re-hosted them in another ward in the same area! .

As expected, observers deleted a lot of videos online of the incident. But these were still circulating among social network users on Friday. The Ministry of Health reported more than 24,000 new positive cases in China on Friday – including more than 23,000 in Shanghai. Very high numbers for the Asian country, which is implementing a zero Covid strategy.