YEMEN: Rising toll of dead and injured in anti-government protests
SANA’A, 14 March 2011 (IRIN) - Mounting tensions escalated in Yemen on 12-13 March when at least seven people were killed and hundreds of others injured in violent clashes between riot police and anti-government protesters demanding an end to the 32-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemeni security forces fired live bullets and tear gas on 13 March at protesters rallying at Sana'a University, killing one person and wounding 19 others, doctors told IRIN.
“Police fired on them from the rooftops,” said Sami Zaid, a doctor in charge of a makeshift hospital near the university.
Zaid said plain-clothed civilians were also involved in the shooting. A video posted on Facebook on 13 March appears to show plainclothes pro-government forces with Kalashnikovs firing from the rooftops and upper floors of nearby apartment buildings.
The day before, riot police launched a pre-dawn raid on Sana'a University square, where thousands of pro-democracy protesters have been camped out for the past month.
Hundreds of people were wounded in the clash, at least 13 of them by live fire, according to doctors at a nearby mosque serving as a field hospital. Volunteer medical staff members there rigged up intravenous drips and bandaged wounds.
Rabie’ Al-Zuraiqi , a 23-year-old protest organizer said he had been injured three times since the clashes began almost three weeks ago. He said he had been hit by rocks, stung by a pro-Saleh “thug” with a taser and on 12 March exposed to tear gas and struck by a rubber bullet.
There have been daily anti-government demonstrations in Sana’a and other cities around the country since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ouster on 11 February. Over the past few weeks, 30 have been killed in the unrest, according to international rights groups.
The protesters have expressed frustration with corruption and soaring unemployment in Yemen, where 40 percent of its 23 million people live on US$2 a day or less, and a third face chronic hunger.
Locals aggrieved
There have also been clashes between anti-government protesters and owners of nearby houses frustrated by the growing demonstrations.
Protesters have been gradually expanding their make-shift camp along stretches of road leading from Sana’a University. In recent days hundreds of new tents have been erected, many in front of homes and commercial stores in local neighbourhoods.
Local residents told IRIN they are “being surrounded” and “felt besieged” by the protests. Others said their families, particularly women, felt harassed.
“Yemen is a conservative society and having men camping in tents at the doorsteps of residential homes is considered a violation of privacy and traditional customs,” said Ahmed Al-Hamdani, one of the anti-government protesters trying to negotiate with local house owners.
Poisonous gas used?
Doctors at the scene of the violence in Sana’a told IRIN the gas used by riot police to disperse protesters over the weekend may have been a form of “illegal poisonous gas”.
Previous media reports had indicated that the gas used against the protesters was tear gas but doctors who have been treating the wounded rejected this claim.
“The material in this gas makes people convulse for hours. It paralyses them. They couldn’t move at all. We tried to give them oxygen but it didn’t work,” said Amaar Nujaim, a field doctor who works for Islamic Relief.
“We are seeing symptoms in the patient’s nerves not in their respiratory systems. I’m 90 percent sure it’s not tear gas that was used,” said Sami Zaid, a doctor at the Science and Technology hospital in Sana’a.
Mohammad Al-Sheikh, a pathologist at the same hospital, said some of the victims had lost control of their muscles, including bowel muscles.
A spokesman from Yemen’s Ministry of Interior told IRIN claims that nerve agents and poisonous gases were used were “absolutely unjustifiable”.
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Copyright © IRIN 2011
This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States.
IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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