HOURS AFTER soldiers opened fire on protesters in Yemen’s capital last night, the United Nations Security Council met in New York to discuss for the first time the country’s long-running crisis and address growing concerns over human rights abuses.
At least three demonstrators died in clashes with security forces in Sanaa and the city of Taiz yesterday. One activist was beaten to death, according to medics.
For the second time in three days, anti-government protesters clashed with hundreds of central security force troops and armed plain-clothes loyalists in western Sanaa, leaving at least two men dead and more than 80 injured.
Witnesses reported seeing four female nurses and several injured activists being kidnapped by soldiers.
Hundreds of riot police fired water cannon, tear gas and live ammunition, including 50-calibre machine guns, at thousands of demonstrators marching from their two-month-old tented campsite along a major six-lane highway.
Gunfire rang out from rooftops in streets across the west of the city, drowning out the evening call to prayer from local mosques.
“Again and again, Ali Abdullah Saleh tries to kill us,” said one demonstrator, referring to Yemen’s long-running president, as he ran from hundreds of baton-wielding, plain-clothes baltajiya (thugs), some of whom carried AK47s.
For the first time activists fought back with more than just rocks, throwing petrol-bombs and setting one water cannon truck alight, before central security forces opened fire with high-calibre machine guns.
Violence in the highland city of Taiz broke out earlier in the day as security forces confronted marching demonstrators, shooting at activists as they burned tyres in the street, killing one and wounding two others.
As the death toll in Yemen’s uprising continued to rise yesterday, in protests that have gripped the country for more than three months, the 15-member UN security council, at the request of non-permanent member Germany, met to be briefed by under-secretary-general for political affairs Lynn Pascoe. The meeting was expected to announce its support for a peaceful political solution and condemn ongoing human rights abuses and the killing of civilians.
In the United Arab Emirates capital, Abu Dhabi, representatives of Yemen’s ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) party gathered with European Union and Gulf foreign ministers, ahead of a meeting today. Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) representatives have, since Sunday, attempted to mediate a political deal between the GPC and Yemen’s coalition of opposition, the Joint Meeting Parties.
The plan, proposed by the six-nation regional GCC, would see Mr Saleh hand over power to his deputy, but does not include the president’s immediate resignation, as called for by the youth-led protest movement. Although strongly supported by the EU and US, western diplomats close to the negotiations are not optimistic the GCC mediation will succeed.
Further demonstrations are expected today throughout the country to mark the death of Mohammed al-Alwani, the first protester killed on February 16th in the southern port city of Aden.