One of the injured persons, Allan Wade Lewis, receiving emergency medical attention.

At least three persons have been confirmed killed following clashes between members of the Guyana Police Force and Lindeners protesting an increase in electricity tariffs.

Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon told Demerara Waves Online News Wednesday night that three males have been confirmed killed with one being a handicapped child.

One of the men he identified as Guyana Defence Force officer Ron Somerset. Unconfirmed reports have placed the number of dead at five. Neither police nor hospital sources could immediately confirm the claim.

Sharma accused the police of using both live rounds and rubber pellets on the protesters and described the situation in Linden Wednesday evening as “pandemonium.”

“Dozens of persons have been injured,” he declared.

There are also reports of several buidlings on fire including the General Office which houses the offices of Linden Electricity Company CEO Horace James and where residents usually pay their electricity bills. Police said the Guyana Revenue Authority Builidng at Washer Pond Road was also set ablaze but Guyana Fire Service firefighters were prevented from from going into action by a number of protestors who threw missiles at the ranks and their vehicle.Roving groups of protestors have also destroyed a truck transporting fuel which was set afire at Wismar and damaged an excavator and have also set fires along the roadway at Half Mile and One Mile, Wismar, police added.

The police in a release Wednesday urged the residents to remain calm and stated that the Joint Services would be patrolling the area.

Around 6 PM the police resorted to firing rubber pellets at protesting Lindeners after tear gas failed to disperse a group that had occupied the Wismar-Mackenzie Bridge all of Wednesday.

Eyewitnesses said the tear gas volleys fell short of the crowd since they were fired from the vicinity of the Linden Hospital Complex and residents retaliated by pelting the police with bottles. At least six persons were seriously injured and several more received minor injuries.

News reaching DemWaves stated that protesters encircled the police on the bridge and pelted them with bottles.

The residents had used old vehicles and other debris to block the bridge, a major artery to the mining interior, since mid-morning.

The police have since restored traffic across the bridge.

Protests have stemmed from the government's introduction of higher electricity rates in the mining town which residents are contending they cannot pay at this time. Businesses in the town have shut down in sympathy with the residents call.

Mackenzie, on the eastern bank of the Demerara River, has been plunged into blackout but the reason is yet unknown.

The Linden Utility Cooperatives Society Limited (LUSCL) for most of Wednesday turned off its supply to residents to Wismar on the western side of the river as part of its protest.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds in an appeal to the residents has urged them to come forward with "earnest, realistic proposals" as an alternative to the increased tariffs introduced from July 1.

"I'm ready for formal proposals. The majority of people want to get on with their lives because we have people who want to stir up fear," he said.

And in a statement Wednesday night he said he was “filled with great disappointment and deep regret” on the blocking of the bridge.

“I regret greatly that demonstrators have succeeded in blocking the Demerara Bridge, and that a number of enterprises and persons in Linden have suspended their normal businesses and getting on with their lives. I deeply regret this setback to all the work that the Government has been doing in advocating Linden as a place in which to be, and a place in which to do business; advocating and working to realize Linden as a gateway to, and from, Region 9, and northern Brazil.”

According to the PM, all that work has now been compromised. He also condemned the electricity company for turning off the power.

“I am particularly upset that, early in the morning, LUSCSL turned off the electricity supply to the Wismar/Christianburg area and, hence, the water supply also. That was plain thuggery upon captive consumers by a utility provider, behaviour that could not be tolerated.”

There was no mention of the deaths in the Prime Minister's statement. In a subsequent programme on state TV he said the residents were being misled by bad leadership.

"The problems for Linden rest on the heads of those leaders who are leading this shutting down of Linden and the closing of the bridge ... I am encouraging everyone who has suffered losses to take the instigators to court; sue them for those losses," the Government Information Agency reported him as saying.

Opposition Leader David Granger travelled to the mining town Wednesday night and visited the injured at the hospital. Linden has been a stronghold of his party the PNCR for decades.