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5 wounded in firefights between security forces, separatists in southern Yemen

22 June 2012 03:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. At least five people were injured Thursday evening during firefights between security forces and separatists in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden, a local resident said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The security troops stormed a year-old protest camp in the Mansoura district in Aden, sparking deadly clashes with southern separatists that left at least five people injured, the local resident told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"Five separatists were injured when they were attempting to attack the troops with home-made grenades," the local resident said.

A medical official from a government hospital in Aden said that "three of the injured men were critically injured."

The secessionist gunmen were still battling the security forces for control of the Martyr’s Square camp in the Mansoura district, witnesses near the scene said.

A police officer told Xinhua saying that "We are going to allow them to gather at the protest camp after opening the main blocked roads nearby."

The port city of Aden is a main stronghold of youth activists demanding independence for the south. North and South Yemen unified peacefully in 1990, but the relationship deteriorated in 1994. Calls for separation in the country’s southern regions were renewed in 2007.