Sana’a, July 23: At least three people were killed and more than 20, including six policemen, were injured in clashes between security forces and supporters of a separatist leader in southern Yemen on Thursday, witnesses said.
The clashes erupted during a rally in Zunjubar city, some 420 kilometres south of Sana’a, held by members of the Southern Movement, a group calling for the south of Yemen to secede from the north, witnesses told the German Press Agency dpa.
They said armed supporters of Sheikh Tariq al-Fadhli, a leading separatist, exchanged fire with police forces surrounding the rally’s site as southern secessionist figures were addressing the rally.
Police officials confirmed the clashes saying gunmen from the crowd began spraying gunfire at the policemen who replied the fire.
They said five policemen and the police vice superintendent of Abyan province were seriously injured.
Authorities imposed a curfew in the city as the clashes continued during the afternoon, witnesses said.
Violent anti-government protests have engulfed cities in Yemen’s southern provinces in recent months, leaving dozens of casualties among protesters and security forces amid claims by the southerners that the central government exercises discriminatory policies against them.
The violence highlights the increasing tensions between southern and northern Yemen, nearly 15 years after a civil war in 1994 that ended with the defeat of the southern military by northern forces led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
North and South Yemen were united in 1990. In 1994, southern leaders announced the secession of the south and battled northern forces led by Saleh for 10 weeks in a civil war that ended in their defeat.
—Agencies