A massive demonstration against Yemen’s government turned into a killing field today as snipers fired down on protesters from rooftops and police made a wall of fire with tires and petrol, blocking a key escape route.
At least 46 people died, including some children, in an attack that marked a new level of brutality in president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s crackdown on dissents.
Medical officials and witnesses said hundreds of people were wounded.
The dramatic escalation in violence suggested Mr Saleh was growing more fearful that the unprecedented street protests over the past month, set off by unrest across the Arab world, could unravel his 32-year grip on power in this volatile, impoverished and gun-saturated nation.
The United States, which has long relied on Mr Saleh for help fighting terrorism, condemned the violence.
The bloodshed failed to dislodge protesters from a large traffic circle they have dubbed “Taghyir Square”, Arabic for “change.” Hours after the shooting, thousands of people demanding Mr Saleh’s exit stood their ground, many of them hurling stones at security troops and braving live fire and tear gas.
They stormed several buildings where the snipers had taken position, dragging out 10 people, including some the protesters claimed were paid thugs. They said the men would be handed over to judicial authorities.
The protest in the capital, Sanaa, drew tens of thousands of people, the largest crowd yet in Yemen’s uprising. It began peacefully. A military helicopter flew low over the square just as protesters were arriving after the main Muslim prayer services of the week.
A short while later, gunfire rang out from rooftops and houses, sending the crowd into a panic.
Dozens were hit and crumpled to the ground. One man ran for help cradling a young boy shot in the head.
Many of the victims were shot in the head and neck, their bodies left sprawled on the ground or carried off by other protesters desperately pressing scarves to wounds to try to stop the bleeding.
Police used burning tires and petrol to block demonstrators from fleeing down a main road leading to sensitive locations, including the president’s residence.
“It is a massacre,” said Mohammad al-Sabri, an opposition spokesman. “This is part of a criminal plan to kill off the protesters, and the president and his relatives are responsible for the bloodshed in Yemen today.”
Witnesses said the snipers wore the beige uniforms of Yemen’s elite forces and that others were plainclothes security officers.
President Saleh denied at a press conference that government forces were involved, claiming that residents angry over the expanding protest camp had opened fire. He ordered the formation of a committee to investigate.
Doctors at a makeshift field hospital near the protest camp at Sanaa University confirmed at least 46 dead, three of them children.
A Yemeni photojournalist, Jamal al-Sharaabi, was among the dead, medical officials said. He is the first journalist killed in the unrest.
Interior minister General Mouthar al-Masri, who is in charge of internal security forces, put the number of dead at 25 and the injured at 200.
The US, which supports Yemen’s government with $250m in military aid this year alone to battle one of al-Qaida’s most active franchises, condemned the attack on protesters.
“Those responsible for today’s violence must be held accountable,” president Barack Obama said. He called on Mr Saleh to adhere to his public pledge to allow peaceful demonstrations.
Instead, Mr Saleh declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency that formally gave his security forces a freer hand to confront demonstrators. The declaration bars citizens from carrying and using weapons.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was “deeply troubled”, said his spokesman, Martin Nesirky. He “reiterates his call for utmost restraint and reminds the government of Yemen that it has an obligation to protect civilians.” Demonstrators are demanding jobs, greater political freedoms and an end to government corruption.
In the latest defection by a political ally of the president, Nabil al-Faqih, the Yemeni tourism minister, resigned today from his cabinet position and from the ruling party to protest against the killings.
“This is the least I can do,” he said. Al-Faqih is the second minister to quit and the latest of several politicians to resign from Mr Saleh’s Congress Party.
Throughout the unrest, security forces and government supporters have used live fire, rubber bullets, tear gas, sticks, knives and rocks against the protesters, who have only grown in number in Sanaa and in many other cities around the nation. The protesters say they will not go until Mr Saleh does and have rejected offers to discuss a unity government.
“They want to scare and terrorise us. They want to drag us into a cycle of violence - to make the revolution meaningless,” said Jamal Anaam, a 40-year-old activist camping out in the protest site.
He said government opponents would not follow the example of their counterparts in Libya who took up arms against Moammar Gadafy. “They want to repeat the Libyan experiment, but we refuse to be dragged into violence no matter what the price,” he said.
The violence showed the government of Mr Saleh and his family are increasingly worried about losing power, said Gregory Johnsen, an expert on Yemen at Princeton University.
“He has been in power for more than three decades and he’s falling back on what he knows best, which is increasingly violent methods.” The tactic is unlikely to work, he predicted.
“Yemen does not have a population that’s easily cowed, so I don’t think they will be put out by fear of death,” he said. “It’s a heavily armed country.
Many of the people there are quite confident and capable of putting security into their own hands.” Mr Saleh and his weak government have faced down many serious challenges, often forging tricky alliances with restive tribes to delicately extend power beyond the capital.
Most recently, he has battled an on-and-off, seven-year armed rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, and an al-Qaeda offshoot that is of great concern to the US al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which formed in January 2009, has moved beyond regional aims and attacked the West, including sending a suicide bomber who came terrifyingly close to blowing up a US-bound airliner with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The device failed to detonate properly.
AP