Riots sweep across Yemen’s south, two dead
Two people were killed and nine others injured when police clashed with protesters in southern Yemeni cities detaining dozens, opposition members and local doctors said.
Two people were killed and nine others injured when police clashed with protesters in southern Yemeni cities detaining dozens, opposition members and local doctors said.
Thousands of anti-government activists took to the streets starting Monday throughout Yemen’s south to mark the defeat of southern secessionist forces in the 1994 civil war.
The south, which was a separate country until it unified with the north in 1990, complains that it is discriminated against by the northerner-dominated government.
Security forces deployed heavily in the port city of Aden on Tuesday, the former southern capital, to prevent protesters from taking to the streets. Still, protesters went out, shouting: “Revolution, revolution, O south.”
Local opposition leader and parliament member Nasser al-Khabagi in Aden said police opened fire to disperse the crowd, and shot Walid al-Suneidi, a political activist in his 20s, as he resisted arrest outside a local hotel.
Al-Suneidi died from head wounds, a doctor at Aden’s al-Mansoura hospital said, on condition his name not be used because of the tension in the city.
Outside the port city of Mukalla in the southern province of Hadramawt, Local council member Ahmed Madi said one person was killed when police fired at the demonstration, which had begun peacefully. No official comment was immediately available on the two incidents.