SANAA – Thousands of Yemeni anti-regime demonstrators chanted defiantly on Wednesday after government loyalists shot two of them dead, while eight ruling party MPs resigned over the suppression of protests. “Enough! Enough! The criminal attacks during the night!,” chanted the mostly young demonstrators encamped at Sanaa University in the capital, after gunmen attacked them during the night, killing two of them and wounding 23, according to witnesses and medics.
“I presented my resignation with seven others to protest the methods used by the General People’s Congress to quell protests in the country,” MP Abdu Bishr said, after two others had done so earlier in the week. He added that “59 over party members are getting together to present a collective resignation.”
President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s GPC said it had indefinitely postponed a counter-demonstration announced for Wednesday due to the deaths of the protesters, a source close to the party said. The attack on the rally took place near midnight and followed other clashes earlier on Tuesday between the two sides.
Witnesses said government loyalists opened fire on the students, killing two of them and wounding 23 before police arrived and returned fire, sending the attackers fleeing. Around 1,000 students have been camping since Sunday at a square near Sanaa university, which they have dubbed Al-Huriya (Liberty) Square and where they have erected a huge tent.
The crowd swells during the day as protesters gather to chant slogans demanding Saleh’s ouster. On Tuesday morning the protesters staged a march through the streets and passed near to where Saleh’s loyalists are hunkered down, sparking a clash during which the pro-regime group attacked them with daggers and batons.
The students, some of whom were also armed with batons, responded. Three students and two of Saleh’s loyalists were wounded before police dispersed the crowd, an AFP correspondent reported. Protests demanding the fall of the regime were also staged on Wednesday in Mukallah, in the southern province of Hadramout, witnesses said.
Demonstrators there clashed with with police and three students were wounded, one of them seriously, according to a civil society organisation spokesman, Nasser Baqazqouz. Clashes also broke out on Wednesday between police and separatist demonstrators who had gathered in front of a police station in Aden, Yemen’s main southern port city.
Thousands of anti-government demonstrators protested overnight in the city calling for the fall of the regime, chanting “the people want to topple the regime” and “no work, no teaching until the fall of the president.” Thousands more continued a sit-in in the Al-Mansura neighbourhood of Aden on Wednesday, chanting: “No talking, no dialogue until the system falls.”
Protests have also surfaced in north Yemen this week, where tens of thousands demonstrated in the Huthi stronghold of Saada to demand the president step down. The Zaidi Shiite rebel movement from 2004 fought six wars with Saleh’s government before signing a truce in February 2010.
Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years and is one of the region’s great survivors, vowed on Monday not to quit under popular pressure and accused his opponents of fuelling the demonstrations. “If they want me to quit, I will only leave through the ballot box,” he said.
