One dead, 35 hurt in Yemen clashes

Yemeni police opened fire yesterday on a crowd of protesters and shot and injured six people in the evening trying to break up a demonstration in the southern port city of Aden while another 25 people were wounded in violent clashes between pro- and anti-regime demonstrators in the capital city of Sanaa.

Thousands of people marched in Aden’s Al-Mansura neighbourhood demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh quit but they were dispersed by police who opened fire. Six protesters were hit and wounded, according to medical sources.

An AFP reporter said tensions between demonstrators and police remained high in the tightly patrolled city which has been rocked by violent clashes for two days in a row.

Twenty people were wounded and a similar number were arrested on Wednesday when demonstrators stormed Al-Mansura police station and the central prison, according to a local official.

Hundreds of protesters also broke into shops and three hotels, setting car tyres ablaze and blocking roads. “The police intervened only when the protests turned violent,” he said.

Mr Saleh ordered the set up of an “investigative committee to inquire about the unfortunate riots that have occurred in some parts of” Al-Mansura, state news agency Saba reported yesterday.

In the capital, on the fifth day of student-led demonstrations against the veteran leader, about 2,000 demonstrators were attacked by regime backers as they left Sanaa University’s campus.

The protesters, chanting “The people want to overthrow the regime”, responded by hurling stones.

Police intervened with warning shots to separate the two sides, but later withdrew, as the protesters came under fire from Saleh supporters, a journalist in Sanaa said.

Fifteen of the injured were protesters and the rest were supporters of the regime, he said.

A stone hit an AFP photographer, injuring his head, while regime loyalists beat up an AFP videographer.

In Sanaa, protests have becoming increasingly violent, despite Mr Saleh – elected to a seven-year-term in September 2006 – urging dialogue on forming a government of national unity.

In Taez, south of Sanaa, protests continued for a sixth day as demonstrators carrying “Leave Ali” banners set up tents at a road intersection near Al-Huraish Square after police chased them away.

The protesters have called for a “Day of Rage” today, with the authorities in Taez reacting with a heavy deployment of Republican Guard forces and the army.

“Yemenis have a legitimate right to freedom of expression and assaults against both them and journalists covering their protests are totally unacceptable,” Am­nesty International said in a statement from London.

It quoted sources in Yemen as saying that “at least 10 demonstrators in Sanaa were injured,” including several in the head, after security forces in plainclothes opened fire with live ­bullets.

Elsewhere in Yemen, in Ibb, southwest of Sanaa, hundreds of protesters took to the streets yesterday demanding that Mr Saleh step down.