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Death Toll Rise to 7 after Saturday Clashes in Yemen

Two anti-regime protesters died in Yemen on Sunday, a day after police shot them in the head, a medic said, raising the death toll to seven from demonstrations against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The two succumbed to wounds after "being shot in the head" in the southern city of Aden, said the medic, adding four other demonstrators were in a critical condition after also being shot in the head.

On Saturday, two other protesters were killed in Aden, one by police when they opened fire to disperse a demonstration and the other when demonstrators set fire to a police station in the city.

A medical official said Saturday hundreds of angry people had set ablaze the police station to protest the death of the protester earlier in the day. Several people were also wounded by gunfire, he said.

Elsewhere, a 12-year-old schoolboy was shot dead when police opened fire at a demonstration of students in the southeastern city of Mukalla.

And two other people died in the capital Sanaa on Saturday, one as police attacked demonstrators in University Square, where anti-government protesters have been staging a sit-in since February 21.

The other was shot dead by a sniper while walking to the square with a group of protesters.

Two doctors at the scene in Sanaa said that toxic gas, rather than ordinary tear gas had been used against the protesters, a claim dismissed as slander by the authorities.

The European Union, Britain and the United Nations condemned the brutal crackdown.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Saleh's government to honor promises he had made this week to protect demonstrators and uphold their right to free assembly.

Source: Agence France Presse


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