Yemen ceasefire but 10 more are killed

Truce, negotiated by Yemen’s vice-president, follows worst violence since protests against President Saleh began An uneasy ceasefire in the Yemeni capital has followed a day of gruesome fighting in which government forces shelled a protest encampment, killing six people and injuring dozens. The truce, negotiated by Yemen’s vice-president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and several foreign envoys, follows the worst bout of violence seen in Yemen since protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh began in earnest in February. Sixty-two people, most of them young men, have been killed and hundreds wounded in three days of violence in Sana’a. International attention is once again fixed on the Arab world’s poorest country and its eight-month fight to oust Saleh. At dawn, the muezzin’s call to prayer was drowned out by the sound of mortar fire as troops loyal to Saleh fought with a division of renegade soldiers for control over strategic parts of the capital. As the conflict raged through the morning, mortars crashed into Change Square, causing havoc in the tented shanty town, where protesters have been camping out since February. In the doorway to a restaurant lay a blood-soaked rag and a pair of sandals. “My friend was sleeping under that blanket,” said a young man, pointing at the spot. “The mortar, it just crushed him.” Tariq Noman, a doctor working in a nearby field hospital, said five others were killed by the shelling. The past three days of violence have left Yemen reeling. A 10-month-old boy and a young cameraman were among those shot dead on Tuesday. Doctors say the gaping wounds they have observed in some of the bodies indicate that heavy weaponry, such as anti-aircraft weapons, is being used on protesters. But the bloodshed did not seem to have fazed those who returned to Change Square. An elderly man with a Yemeni flag draped around his shoulders was among those pushing toward the front, shouting: “We fear Allah only!” The heart of the conflict is a roundabout at the edge of the protest encampment called Kentucky, a busy intersection that divides the north and south of the capital. What began as a government crackdown on a march on Sunday is shifting into a fierce military showdown between the Republican Guard – an elite force headed by Saleh’s son Ahmed – and defected soldiers loyal to Ali Mohsen, a powerful general who joined the opposition in March. A spokesmen for Mohsen, a relative of the president, said: “We’re defending, not attacking. We will not sit and watch government troops attacking innocent protesters – our job is to help them.” But opinion among the inhabitants of Change Square remains divided over the role of the renegade troops, with some touting them as “heroes and protectors of the revolution” and others deriding them for derailing their peaceful protest. “We had no say in this. Ali Mohsen and his solders are giving them more of a justification for the crackdown,” said Ahmed Al-Sarbi, a 24-year-old activist. Saleh, who has been recuperating in Saudi Arabia since surviving an assassination attempt in early June, has so far rebuffed calls to hand over power. On Monday King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met with Saleh in Riyadh, infuriating demonstrators who took it as a sign that the kingdom was supporting the beleaguered leader. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s office has said he is “gravely concerned” and has called on all sides to exercise the utmost restraint and desist from provocative actions: “He strongly condemns the excessive use of force by government security forces against unarmed protestors in the capital Sana’a, resulting in scores of people killed and many more injured.” Yemen Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Tom Finn guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 20, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.