AN UNEASY ceasefire in the Yemeni capital has followed a day of gruesome fighting in which government forces shelled a protest encampment, killing six people and injuring dozens.
The truce, negotiated by Yemeni vice-president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and several foreign envoys, follows the worst bout of violence since protests against Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh began in earnest in February.
Sixty-two people, most of them young men, have been killed and hundreds wounded in three days of violence in Sanaa. International attention is once again fixed on the Arab world’s poorest country and the fight to oust Mr Saleh.
At dawn, the muezzin’s call to prayer was drowned out by the sound of mortar fire as troops loyal to Mr Saleh fought with a division of renegade soldiers for control over strategic parts of the capital. As the conflict raged through the morning, mortars crashed into Change Square, causing havoc in the tented shanty town, where protesters have been camping out since February.
In the doorway to a restaurant lay a blood-soaked rag and a pair of sandals. “My friend was sleeping under that blanket,” said a young man, pointing at the spot. “The mortar, it just crushed him.”
Tariq Noman, a doctor working in a nearby field hospital, said five others were killed by the shelling.
The past three days of violence have left Yemen reeling. A 10-month-old boy and a young cameraman were among those shot dead yesterday. Doctors say the gaping wounds they have observed in some of the bodies indicate that heavy weaponry, such as anti-aircraft weapons, is being used on protesters.
The bloodshed did not seem to have fazed those who returned to Change Square yesterday. An elderly man with a Yemeni flag draped around his shoulders was among those shouting: “We fear Allah only!”
What began as a government crackdown on a march on Sunday is shifting into a fierce military showdown between the Republican Guard – an elite force headed by Mr Saleh’s son Ahmed – and defected soldiers loyal to Ali Mohsen, a powerful general who joined the opposition in March.
A spokesmen for Gen Mohsen, a relative of the president, said yesterday: “We’re defending, not attacking. We will not sit and watch government troops attacking innocent protesters.”
But opinion among the inhabitants of Change Square remains divided over the role of the renegade troops, with some touting them as “heroes and protectors of the revolution” and others deriding them for derailing their peaceful protest.
Mr Saleh, who has been recuperating in Saudi Arabia since surviving an assassination attempt in early June, has so far rebuffed calls to hand over power. – ( Guardianservice)