Yemeni police fire on protest, 65 hurt: hospital

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110308/wl_nm/us_yemen

Yemeni police fire on protest, 65 hurt: hospital

By Mohammed Ghobari Mohammed Ghobari – Tue Mar 8, 6:17 pm ET

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemeni police opened fire on protesters in the capital Sanaa

on Tuesday, wounding at least 65 people demonstrating for an end to President

Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year-old rule, hospital sources said.

Six of the wounded were in a serious condition, they said.

Policemen and security agents in civilian clothes opened fire as they tried to

prevent people from joining thousands of protesters who have camped out for

weeks in front of Sanaa University, witnesses told Reuters earlier.

The state news agency Saba blamed the shooting on gunmen linked to a tribal

leader and said three demonstrators and three policemen were injured. It said

police were hunting the gunmen.

Earlier police brought out water cannon and placed concrete blocks around Sanaa

University, after weeks of fierce clashes across the country between government

loyalists and protesters that killed at least 27 people.

Around 10,000 protesters marched in the city of Dhamar, 60 km (40 miles) south

of Sanaa, residents said by telephone. Dhamar is known for ties to Saleh and is

the hometown of Yemen's prime minister, interior minister and head judge.

" Leave! leave! " the protesters shouted in Dhamar, two days after Saleh loyalists

there held a similar-sized rally. Protesters pelted a municipal official with

rocks.

Burgeoning protests fueled by anger over poverty and corruption, and a series of

defections from Saleh's political and tribal allies, have added pressure on him

to step aside this year even as he pledges to stay on until his term ends in

2013.

" Across the board, what you're seeing is that more and more people are really

starting to crystallize around this single call for the president to step down, "

Princeton University Yemen scholar sen said.

Yemen, neighbor to oil giant Saudi Arabia, was teetering on the brink of failed

statehood even before recent protests. Saleh has struggled to cement a truce

with Shi'ite Muslim rebels in the north and curb secessionist rebellion in the

south, all the while fighting al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing.

MINISTER BLAMES POOR ECONOMY

Analysts say protests may be reaching a point where it will be difficult for

Saleh to cling to power.

In what could add to popular anger, two Yemeni rights groups said two prisoners

had died after security forces on Monday used live ammunition and tear gas to

halt a prison riot in Sanaa.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi blamed growing protests on poor

economic conditions. Some 40 percent of Yemen's 23 million people live on $2 a

day or less and a third face chronic hunger. Qirbi said he wanted foreign donors

to inject up to $6 billion to fill a five-year budget gap.

" What we need is really development and economic growth because the present

political crisis is really as a result of the economic situation in Yemen, " he

said at a Gulf ation Council foreign ministers' meeting in Abu Dhabi on

Monday.

Protesters are demanding greater participation in a government largely led by

Saleh's closest allies. They say they are frustrated by rampant corruption and

soaring unemployment, which is at 35 percent or higher.

Princeton's sen said calls for foreign aid were a tactical move by Saleh to

buy time to divide the protesters.

" Yemen wants more money to come in and Saleh wants to try and fragment the

protesters as much as he can. President Saleh is trying to string this out as

long as possible in the hopes he can pit different interest groups against one

another, " he said.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Sudam and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Sanaa,

Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden and Mahmoud Habboush in Abu Dhabi; Additional

reporting and writing by and ston; Editing by

Roche)