Gunfire Kills at Least 10 at Yemen Protest, Reports Say

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Yemeni demonstrator was injured on the second day of clashes in the southern city of Taiz as demonstrators marched on the government headquarters demanding the ouster President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Monday.

SANA, Yemen — Security forces and plainclothes government supporters opened fire Monday on tens of thousands of protesters from rooftops, according to witnesses, as violent clashes spread for a second day through the central city of Taiz. At least 10 people were killed, according to the official Saba news agency; a doctor at a local hospital said 12 had died and 50 more were wounded in the gunfire.
The violence in Taiz, where tens of thousands have staged a sit-in for more than six weeks, was the deadliest yet seen there and came amid signs that the United States had concluded that President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a longtime ally, must be eased out of office. Protesters have demanded he step down immediately.
Yemen’s coalition of opposition political parties condemned the violence and implored foreign powers to “quickly intervene to stop President Saleh and his entourage from shedding more Yemeni blood.”
Witnesses said Monday’s clashes began when protesters tried to march on a presidential palace in Taiz, about two miles from the neighborhood where demonstrators have staged the sit-in.
Security forces confronted the crowds and tried to prevent them from continuing to the palace, using tear gas before firing bullets into the air and then at protesters as others fired from rooftops around the protest route, witnesses said.
The Associated Press, citing witnesses reached by telephone, said some protesters had been trampled by fleeing crowds.
“There were people dressed in both soldier uniforms and civilian clothes shooting live bullets from rooftops,” said Abdul Habib al-Qadasy, 47, an engineer who was at the protest in Taiz.
The description of the violence resembled a violent crackdown in the capital, Sana, two weeks ago, when snipers linked to the government fired from buildings in an effort to prevent protesters from marching. More than 50 people were killed.
While acknowledging the outbreak of violence on Monday, the government gave a different account of how it began, saying the police had intervened only to break up a clash between government supporters and protesters.
“They went to one very crowded street in Taiz and planned to sit,” a high-ranking government official in Sana said of the protesters in Taiz. “They took about 300 people. The shopkeepers and the residents on that street said, ‘Please don’t, if you sit here you are going to hurt us,’ and so they started fighting and the police came.”
The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the clashes, said he had spoken to the governor of Taiz, who said the security forces had only fired shots into the air. The official said five people had been killed and suggested that they had been shot in an exchange of fire between plain-clothes government supporters and armed protesters
“The protesters have a plan of escalation,” he said.
Until recently demonstrations in Taiz have been largely contained to one area surrounded by security forces and civilian-run weapons checkpoints. But in the last few days protesters have begun marching outside that area, apparently in an effort to ratchet up pressure on the government.
Protesters also staged simultaneous large marches in two other areas of the city, and hundreds marched in the western coastal city of Hodeidah, where security forces fired tear gas and shot into the air to disperse the crowds. Dozens were reported injured in the Hodeidah clashes, including four police officers, according to the state news agency.
On Monday in Sana protesters reacted to reports of the violence in Taiz by trying to march about a half-mile south of their own sit-in area, according to Adel al-Suraby, a student protest leader. Plain-clothed men reacted by throwing rocks at the protesters, Mr. Suraby said, injuring at least five.
Some said the violence in Taiz presented an opportunity for the United States to become directly involved in ending Mr. Saleh’s 32-year-long rule.