Sana, Yemen – Clashes broke out late Saturday evening between security forces and demonstrators here, killing one protester and wounding 15, doctors said at a field hospital at the site.
Security forces opened fire, said witnesses, in the first direct assault on protesters in the capital since snipers killed 52 protesters more than three weeks ago. The shooting follows a week of violence in a central city, Taiz, where security forces and men in plain clothes have fatally shot about 20 protesters.
Saturday’s violence began after a group of about 400 protesters tried to march to the presidential palace late in the evening. They were stopped at a major intersection by security forces about a half-mile away from their main sit-in area.
After an hour of a tense standoff, gunfire started. Plainclothesmen, wielding guns, were standing around the police, and had surrounded the area where the protesters had broken off from the main protest site. Two water cannons also pounded the area.
The demonstrators had wandered out of an area where soldiers under Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar, a top military leader who broke with the government last month, guarded the protesters.
After the gunfire started, the protesters temporarily scattered, though some returned, chanting “Peaceful, Peaceful” and “There is no God but Allah.”
“At first they shot into the air, and then they shot at us,” said Mustafa Amrany, a 14-year-old boy, who was lying on the floor of a nearby mechanic’s shop after being exposed to tear gas. He said: “I am not young. I am here with the protest,” while Ismael Mohamed, the mechanic, poured water over his burning eyes. Before the violence erupted Saturday, the atmosphere was tense, and periodically the protesters yelled out taunts at the security forces.
“We are escalating our protests,” said Ziad Rahim, 23, before the gunfire erupted. The majority who left the main protest area appeared to be in their 20s. Many wore shirts with the words “project martyr” in Arabic.
On Sunday, a Yemeni official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject accused the political opposition of “maintaining a controlled chaos strategy to tip the balance of the situation in their favor by provoking violence.”
The official said that central security forces had exchanged fire Saturday night with General al-Ahmar’s soldiers but that “it is not clear who pulled the first shot.”
However, at the time the attack began, General al-Ahmar’s soldiers were not among the protesters.
Further clashes between security forces and protesters also took place Saturday in Taiz, where 43 protesters were wounded by gunfire, according to a local doctor.
The article “Clashes in Yemen Leave One Protester Dead” originally appeared at The New York Times.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy