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Election rally stampede kills at least 50 in Yemen

More than 50 people were killed and over 100 injured in a stampede yesterday at a stadium in southern Yemen during an election rally by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a senior security official said.

The victims were crushed to death when tens of thousands of people tried to gain entry into the sports stadium at the town of Ibb which was already crammed with some 100,000 rallygoers, witnesses said.

"More than 50 people have been killed and over 100 injured" in the stampede at Ibb, some 180km south of Sanaa, the official said, requesting anonymity.

The stampede occurred just minutes after Saleh had finished an election speech in the run-up to the Sept. 20 presidential and local polls.

Bodies and injured people were seen lying on the ground as rescue teams and ambulances rushed to the scene.

The Ibb constituency, which has some 900,000 voters, is the second most important in Yemen after the capital Sanaa, and is an opposition stronghold.

The president kicked off his election campaign on Aug. 30 and is virtually certain to win the presidential polls in which he faces four challengers.

The 64-year-old field marshal has been at the helm since 1978, first as president of the then North Yemen and then as leader of the unified state after north and south merged in May 1990.

The election campaign in the impoverished tribal-based Arabian peninsula country has been marred by acts of vandalism and violence, in which four people have been killed.

Tribesmen also abducted four French tourists in southeast Yemen on Sunday in a bid to put pressure on authorities to free jailed members of their tribe.

Saleh's ruling General People's Congress (GPC) and an electoral opposition alliance dubbed "Common Forum" that backs the president's main rival, Faisal bin Shamlan, accused each other of being behind acts of vandalism at a political rally in Ibb on Saturday.

Three Yemenis were killed and eight wounded last last month in a shootout between supporters of GPC and Common Forum local candidates in Jawf, 180km north of Sanaa.

A nephew of independent presidential hopeful Ahmad al-Majeedi was killed Aug. 28 while organizing a rally for his uncle in Lahij in southwest Yemen.
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