20 Dead, 500 Hurt as Yemeni Forces Open Fire on Demo

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Yemeni security forces opened fire on protesters in Sanaa calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Sunday, killing 20 people and wounding 500 others, medics said.

Medics in the capital reported 20 dead and 500 others wounded by live rounds, batons or suffering from breathing difficulties after inhaling tear gas.

"Twenty people have been killed -- four of them (were declared dead) at the Sciences and Technology hospital and the remaining 16 at a field hospital," a medic said.

Earlier Mohammed al-Abani, who heads a Sanaa field hospital, reported 12 dead and said: "Five hundred others were wounded by live rounds and batons or suffer from breathing difficulties due to inhaling tear gas."

Security forces and armed civilians opened fire on tens of thousands of protesters who left Change Square, where they have camped since February, and marched towards the center of the capital, witnesses said.

Security forces also used water cannons and fired tear gas to disperse the rally, they added.

A medical official said that the injuries of 25 of those wounded by live rounds and shrapnel were critical.

Among those, he said, were members of Yemen's national council, an umbrella of opposition groups.

He named them as Mohammed al-Dhaheri, a professor of political science at Sanaa University, and Ahmed al-Qumairi of the Islamist Al-Islah (Reform) opposition group.

The interior ministry accused protesters of wounding four members of the security forces, throwing petrol bombs at electricity generators, and burning one police car and one firefighting vehicle, in statements on state television.

It also accused the Common Forum, an alliance of parliamentary opposition, of "pushing protesters towards staging armed rallies aimed at attacking public and private installations in an attempt to foil the dialogue."

As clashes raged in the capital, massive demonstrations broke out in several cities south of Sanaa -- Taez, Yemen's second-largest city, Ibb, and Dhammar -- and in Saada in the north, to denounce the violence.

On Saturday, six university students were wounded in clashes between rival groups at Sanaa University, those involved and a medical official said.

Saleh is receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia following a June bomb blast on his presidential compound.

He has resisted regional and international calls for him to step down despite more than eight months of nationwide protests that have left at least 200 demonstrators dead across the country.

Earlier on Sunday, heavy shelling targeted the area surrounding the home of a powerful Yemeni dissident tribal chief in Sanaa as his office and authorities exchanged blame over the violence.

Troops loyal to Saleh "opened fire using machine guns and are firing mortar rounds on the area surrounding Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar's home" in al-Hasaba district, said a source from the tribal chief's home.

The shelling, which began in the afternoon, also targeted al-Mazda road in the district's center prompting people there to flee the area, witnesses said.

"The shelling is targeting us from several directions but we have not responded as sheikh Sadiq has given us orders not to respond," the source who spoke from Ahmar's home told Agence France Presse.

But Yemen's Minister of Interior Motahar Rashad al-Masri said that "Ahmar's gunmen, deployed on rooftops, opened fire on the ministry of interior and policemen who were having their lunch."

The troops "responded only to silence the source of fire," he added. "We are committed to self-restraint based on the orders of vice president" Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.

In a statement Saturday, Ahmar's office accused troops loyal to Saleh, who has been recovering in Riyadh from bomb blast wounds since June, of firing six mortar rounds late on Friday at the tribal chief's home.

No casualties were reported.

Fierce clashes between Ahmar's tribesmen and loyal troops in al-Hasaba in May killed more than 140 people before the two sides agreed a truce.

The sheikh heads the powerful Hashid tribe which ended its support to Saleh -- also a member of Hashid -- in March and joined the protests which erupted in January demanding the ouster of the president.

Influential tribal leaders formed in August a coalition headed by Ahmar to bolster the uprising against Saleh who has been in a Saudi hospital since June after being wounded in a bomb attack on his Sanaa compound.

Tribes wield much influence in impoverished Yemen, where the Hashid is a heavily armed tribal confederation capable of rallying and financing thousands of fighters. The Bakil is the other main tribal confederation.

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