Hong Kong — A viral video showed elderly residents of a nursing home choking from the tear gas that police fired on the streets.
The footage was recorded from the first floor of the Kwan Yue Elder Nursing Home in Yuen Long. Residents were heard coughing while a cloud of tear gas filled the room and eventually blocked the window.
A woman was heard saying “Why aren’t the windows closed?”
西邊圍對面的安老院，催淚彈射到三樓院舍，百多老人家驚恐逃避，特衰政府，老吾老以及人之老。有冇用腦？
Posted by Clarence Chan on Saturday, July 27, 2019
The nursing home is located on On Lok Road where there was a heated confrontation between police and protesters.
On Saturday (July 27), police fired tear gas at peaceful protesters marching against the brutal and violent incident at the MTR station last week where a mob clad in white bludgeoned civilians with rods, attacking even the pregnant and elderly.
The police used tear gas, batons, pepper spray, and sponge grenades against the protesters who defied the police ban to march on the streets.
Hong Kong police Senior Superintendent Yolanda Yu Hoi-kwan said in an earlier statement that there were no elderly care homes affected by the dispersal, but the viral footage showed otherwise. The police reported that they called two other nursing homes to warn them of the protests and take precautionary measures.
Although operations went back to normal on Sunday, businesses on On Lok Road reported a drop in profits. Evidence of yesterday’s protests were strewn across the roads: metal railings gone missing and graffiti sprayed on walls declaring “liberate Hong Kong.”
Other residents living nearby were also affected by the tear gas and argued that the police did not put up early warnings.
“We could smell the gas and it was irritating our eyes. We immediately closed the windows and turned on the air con,” said resident Cheryl Yuen in an report by the South China Morning Post.
According to staff members of the nursing home, no elderly residents were taken to the hospital because of the tear gas effects./TISG
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