MANAMA — Police in Bahrain on Sunday fired tear gas at thousands of demonstrators chanting anti-government slogans after the funeral of an elderly man who witnesses say died from tear gas inhalation.

The unrest Sunday is the fourth straight day of clashes between pro-democracy protesters and security forces along a main highway west of the Bahraini capital Manama, The Associated Press reported. 

Amir al-Mouali said his 73-year-old neighbor, Abdulali Ali Ahmed, was taken to a hospital Saturday morning after struggling to breath during a night of heavy clashes near his home along the Budaiya highway, which connects a string of Shiite villages west of Manama.

Al-Mouali said Ahmed died Saturday evening.

In a statement Sunday, Bahrain's Interior Ministry said Ahmed died of natural causes.

The demonstrations along the strategic highway have been going since Thursday. The Budaiya highway leads to a junction that is roughly half a kilometer (a quarter of a mile) south of Manama's Pearl Square.

Government forces evicted protesters from the Pearl Square in March and tore down the pearl sculpture that marked the site.

The now heavily guarded square holds great symbolic value for Bahrain's anti-regime movement, and protesters have repeatedly tried to retake it.

Since mid-February, thousands of anti-government protesters have been staging regular demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

 

On March 14, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.

 

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in the crackdown.

 

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have "evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces and riot police" in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.