A protester died on Thursday night from burns sustained during the torching of the government headquarters, health and security sources said.

People attacked the offices of the state-run Iraqiya TV and set fire to the headquarters of the ruling Dawa Party, the Supreme Islamic Council and the Badr Organization, whose leaders are all vying to form Iraq’s ruling coalition. Two more protesters died during those attacks, local security and health sources said.

Protesters also set fire to the offices of a powerful Shi’a militia, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and those of the Hikma Movement about 100 km (60 miles) north of Basra, and stormed the house of the acting head of the provincial council.

The provincial government headquarters was engulfed in flames, local police and military sources said. No protesters were near the building when the fire broke out in the afternoon, they said

Basra security officials announced a curfew from 10:30 p.m. to help quell the protests.

Southern Iraq, heartland of the Shi’a majority, first erupted in unrest in July as protesters expressed rage over collapsing infrastructure, power cuts and corruption.

Residents in Basra, a city of more than 2 million people, say the water supply has become contaminated with salt.

A Health Ministry spokesman told a news conference in Baghdad that 6,280 people had been recently hospitalized with diarrhea because of the oversalinated water.

Public anger has grown at a time when politicians are struggling to form a government after an inconclusive parliamentary election in May. Residents of the south complain of decades of neglect in the region that produces the bulk of Iraq’s oil wealth.