Six Yemenis shot in Aden march, protest leaders say

DUBAI, (Reuters) – Yemeni security forces shot dead a protester in Aden on Friday and wounded five others at a south Yemen separatist movement demonstration, a member of the group said, but an official said protesters had fired on security forces.

The man was shot by a sniper as he marched with a group of several hundred protesters who were trying to get into a public square in the Mansoura district of the Arabian Sea port city, said Hussein Zaid bin Yahya, a leader of the Southern Movement.

“A second protester is in critical condition from a bullet wound” and four others were wounded, Yahya said. Security forces and the army had tried to block the protesters’ way near the square, he said.

A security official said that “armed elements in the march” had fired on security forces and the army. He could not confirm the protester’s death.

The march was held to commemorate the day in 1994 that government forces from Sanaa stormed Aden at the end of a brief civil war. Aden was the capital of the former South Yemen until unification in 1990.

Yemen, an impoverished Arabian Peninsula state that straddles major shipping routes, has been in turmoil since an uprising against veteran ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh began last year after the successful Arab Spring uprising in Tunisia.

Saleh stepped down in February but the divisions remain.

The U.S.-backed government is battling al Qaeda-linked militants who have become further entrenched in parts of the south in the past year and who have tried to use their foothold to stage attacks in Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The ministry of defence said on Friday that unidentified gunmen attacked a government building in Dalea province in the south with grenades and gunshots.