SANAA – Police killed a boy and wounded hundreds of people in pre-dawn clashes in the Yemeni capital on Saturday and a 12-year-old youth died during anti-government demonstrations in the southern city of Mukalla, witnesses said.
A man watching protests from his office window in Sanaa was also shot dead by a stray bullet, a security source said. Thousands of protesters have been demanding the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule and at least 30 people have lost their lives in weeks of unrest in this poverty-stricken country, a neighbour of oil giant Saudi Arabia.
In an upswing in the violence, security forces battled protesters in the capital, Sanaa, early on Saturday in an apparent effort to prevent a makeshift camp housing thousands of government opponents from spreading any further. A doctor said a young boy had been fatally shot in the head. “We think around 300 are wounded,” he added.
The Interior Ministry accused protesters of opening fire during the fighting and said 161 police were injured. Dozens of demonstrators were apparently overcome by volleys of police teargas, with friends using torn pieces of cardboard to fan them as they lay stretched out on the ground. “The gas used by the police is strange.
It causes cramps and a collapse of the nervous system,” said Bashir al-Kahli, a doctor helping the injured. “Many of those affected come back with complications after receiving first aid.” The Interior Ministry denied using any sort of nerve gas.
In Mukall the 12-year-old boy died when police fired live rounds to disperse the crowds, residents said. A wave of protests, inspired by popular revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, has weakened Saleh’s grip on Yemen, but he has steadfastly refused calls for his immediate resignation and the police response to the crisis has become increasingly tough.
