Asia

Home page

Asia

Yemenis come out in force against govt.

29 September 2011 03:36 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Tens of thousands of Yemeni protesters have once again held demonstrations across the country, demanding the ouster of Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, APA reports quoting Press TV.

The protesters took to the streets in the capital Sana’a as well as the southern and southwestern cities of Taizz, Al Hudaydah, and Ibb on Wednesday, venting their anger at Saleh’s surprise return from Saudi Arabia to Yemen last week, a Press TV correspondent reported.

In Sana’a, the regime forces prevented the demonstrators from marching on government offices and buildings.

The outraged public rallied in the capital’s Change Square, waving flags, flashing peace signs, and shouting slogans against the regime and its foreign backers.

Earlier in the day, pro-democracy tribesmen reportedly shot down a regime warplane that was bombing their positions in the north of Sana’a.

A Yemeni official confirmed the downing of the plane in the district of Arhab, adding that anti-regime fighters had been behind the shooting, while a tribesman said the pilot was in the tribesmen’s custody.

The impoverished country has been rocked since January by near-daily mass protests demanding the removal of the regime as well as an end to corruption and unemployment.

Some 40 percent of the Yemen’s population live on USD 2 a day or less and a third are wrestling with chronic hunger.

Saleh returned to the country from Saudi Arabia on Friday, having stayed in the kingdom since a June rocket attack on the presidential palace that inflicted serious injury on him and other senior officials.

Hundreds of people have been killed so far during a regime-ordered crackdown on the anti-government protests. More than 170 people, most of them unarmed protesters, have lost their lives in the suppressive campaign in the capital since last Sunday.