Bahrain mourners clash with police following jailbreak funerals

Protesters clashed with police in Bahrain's capital Manama on Wednesday after a mourning ceremony for three people killed while allegedly attempting to flee to Iran last week.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of the Shia village of Bani Jamra, shouting anti-regime slogans, witnesses said.

Protesters were met with police who fired buckshot to disperse the crowd.

Several protesters were hit, according to witnesses, however the number of those wounded remains unknown.

The government said the three fugitives were killed last Thursday as they tried to flee by boat from Bahrain to Iran following a prison break.

They were either prisoners who escaped in the 1 January storming of Jaw prison or their accomplices, according to the interior ministry.

Seven other people were arrested in connection with the jailbreak, which freed 10 people serving long sentences for  alleged "terrorism", it added.

The fresh clashes came as protesters marked the sixth anniversary of an anti-government uprising that was brutally suppressed and led to hundreds of arrests.

Meanwhile, an explosion wounded two civilian passers-by on Tuesday evening, the interior ministry said.

The ministry did not say what caused the blast in a village outside Manama, but demonstrators sometimes throw petrol bombs during the sporadic protests that still grip the kingdom.

The latest demonstration in the capital ended when police fired tear gas and stun grenades, witnesses said.

Pictures of injured protesters online were shared by activists on social media however no official statements were published by the interior ministry.

Sunni-ruled Bahrain has been rocked by unrest since March 2011 when authorities backed by Saudi forces put down a month of protests led by the Gulf state's marginalised Shia-majority demanding democratic reforms.

Since then, hundreds, including influential community leaders, scholars, lawyers and internationally-recognised activists have been arrested and put on trial, while others have been stripped of their citizenship.

The Gulf kingdom's largest opposition party, al-Wefaq was the hardest hit in the crackdown and its leader Sheikh Ali Salman has been behind bars since 2014 after being convicted of "inciting hatred".

Last week Bahrain's top court rejected an appeal by the group against its dissolution over terrorism-related charges, a judicial source said.

The court of cassation "denied the appeal against the dissolution of al-Wefaq and the seizure of its assets," the source said.

The decision comes three months after the Gulf kingdom's largest Shia party appealed a court order to dissolve it over charges of inciting violence, encouraging demonstrations and "harbouring terrorism".

The court ruling drew strong criticism from the United Nations as well as international human rights groups.