Plainclothes gunmen yesterday shot dead at least five people in Sana’a, casting a pall over a hard-won deal for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s departure after 33 years in power.
The shooting came as tens of thousands gathered for a mass protest against promises of immunity from prosecution for Saleh and his family under the UN-backed accord signed with the parliamentary opposition.
The five were all gunned down with live rounds, said medics at a field hospital set up by protesters in the Yemeni capital’s Change Square, where they have been camped out since February.
Photo: EPA
Thirty-four people were also wounded, the medics said.
An Agence France-Presse correspondent said the anti-regime protesters came under fire as they marched towards the city center, with the demonstrators blaming the attack on Saleh’s “thugs.”
Activists behind 10 months of protests had called for a huge protest rally against the promises of immunity under the deal which Saleh finally signed in Riyadh on Wednesday after months of prevarication.
The protesters also chanted slogans against the Common Forum parliamentary opposition bloc led by the Islamist party al-Islah, which was the first to sign up to the plan drawn up by Yemen’s wealthy Gulf neighbors.
“Common Forum, Islah, leave after the assailant,” they shouted, referring to Saleh, who is expected to travel straight from the Saudi capital to New York for medical treatment.
The 69-year-old sustained serious blast wounds in a June bombing of his residence and has already received extensive treatment in Saudi Arabia.
After the latest killings, the marchers returned to Change Square as pro- and anti-Saleh gunmen deployed across the capital, sending tensions soaring, residents said.
In Yemen’s second-largest city Taez, another center of the protests against Saleh, “hundreds of thousands” took to the streets yesterday with similar demands, organizers said, without reporting any early clashes.
Under Wednesday’s deal, Saleh is to hand his powers over immediately to Yemeni Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi and hold office on an honorary basis only for the coming 90 days.
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