Gunfire and shelling rocked Sanaa for the third straight day on Tuesday as the death toll from the worst outbreak of violence in Yemen’s capital in months spiralled to 60, with hundreds wounded. Fresh fighting between dissident military troops and those loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh broke out at dawn and raged into the morning, leaving another seven people dead and 16 wounded, medics and witnesses said. “Four civilians and three soldiers from the First Armoured Brigade were killed,” a medical official said, referring to dissident troops led by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.
A brief lull that lasted only a few hours during the night was followed by fierce battles involving automatic gunfire and shelling, witnesses said. Republican Guard troops, commanded by Saleh’s son Ahmed, shelled posts held by Ahmar’s troops around Change Square, epicentre of the anti-regime protests that have shaken Yemen for months, witnesses said.
They added that the shelling was coming from Hada district in Sanaa’s south. The protesters, camped at Sanaa’s Change Square and nearby Al-Zubairi Road, spoke of fierce fighting between the rival military forces. Change Square was targeted by mortar rounds and anti-aircraft fire, with one witness describing it as the “heaviest shelling” yet and saying it “lit the sky over the square.”
Protest organisers told AFP the numbers of demonstrators camped in an area stretching about three kilometres (two miles) from Change Square to Al-Zubairi Road had swelled to nearly 150,000. Their figures could not immediately be verified. A shell hit Al-Iman University near the square killing one and wounding three others, said university spokesman Ayed al-Zindani. Mortar rounds also fell near the field hospital set up at Change Square in which six people were wounded, said activist Walid al-Amari.
Ahmar’s troops and members of the protesters’ security committee deployed heavily in the area surrounding the square and set up checkpoints at its entrances, witnesses said. Private schools, banks and governments buildings surrounding the square and in nearby neighbourhoods were shut, they added.
On Monday, Yemeni forces killed at least 27 people in clashes around Change Square and other parts of the capital, medics and organisers of the protests said. Among the dead were three dissident soldiers. Twenty-six people were killed in Sanaa on Sunday, according to medics. More than 600 people have been wounded by gunfire in Sanaa since Sunday, with 47 in critical condition, according to protest organisers and medics.
Five civilians were also killed in the city of Taez south of Sanaa while six others were wounded in random shelling and gunfire by Saleh’s forces, according to medics and residents there.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Tuesday for a halt to violence in Yemen and urged the president to accept a power transfer.
“In this volatile situation, it is crucial to exercise restraint, avoid provocative action, refrain from further violence and take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation,” her spokesman said in a statement. The US embassy said Washington hoped for a peaceful transition of power and hoped a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative would be signed within a week to transfer power from Saleh to his deputy.
The bloodletting coincides with the arrival in Sanaa of UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar and Gulf Cooperation Council chief Abdulatif al-Zayani for what a diplomat said was the signing of a UN roadmap for the transfer of power. The opposition has however declined to meet the any of the officials. “The opposition cannot receive them while blood is flowing in Sanaa,” said a leading opposition activist who requested anonymity. A high-level Saudi official said on Saturday that Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi would sign a Gulf-brokered initiative “within a week.”
