Death Toll Rises In Yemen Unrest

Security forces in Yemen have killed more than 50 people in two days of violence against anti-government protesters, activists say, in the country’s bloodiest clashes for months. Snipers in Sanaa fired from rooftops at a protester camp, killing bystanders including a child, witnesses said.

Government forces also shelled areas held by troops loyal to the protesters. The opposition has promised to carry on its campaign to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Lisa Mullins gets details from New York Times reporter Laura Kasinof in Yemen.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  The protests of the Arab Spring are turning into the Arab Fall.  There was heavy fighting in the capital of Yemen today.  It was the second day of deadly clashes there.  Yemeni security forces turned on anti-government protestors and they’re turning on each other as well. We spoke earlier today to Laura Kasinof of the New York Times who’s in the capital of Sana’a.  She says it’s some of the worst violence there since March.

Laura Kasinof: I’m hearing gruesome scenes coming from the hospital, and bodies everywhere, blood everywhere, very bad.  So I think you know, we’re hearing heavy artillery use, we’re hearing machine gun fire, and it doesn’t show signs of stopping right now.

Mullins: So, just very briefly tell us, what did spark this latest violence?

Kasinof: Yesterday what happened is the anti-government protestors here in Sanaa who maintain a sit-in here in the capital and has done so for months, marched outside of the perceptive sit-in area.  As soon as they did so they were attacked by security forces and by snipers.  And some of the security forces attacked them using heavy caliber machine guns.  And so we saw, it was very, very brutal violence used against them.  And somewhere around 25 protestors were killed yesterday. However, what is also very important is the violence against protestors yesterday ignited clashes and conflicts between Yemen’s surviving military.  Yemen has armed forces who support the protestors and Yemen has armed forces who are still loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has refused to step down after all these months of protests. And throughout the afternoon today we’re hearing artillery fire, heavy machine gun fire and RPGs across the capital.

Mullins: The protestors you say remain peaceful, but in many cases they’re being shot at.  Are there no weapons among the protestors, are they not firing back?

Kasinof: That is true, because actually they don’t have any weapons among the protestors, which is particularly significant when it comes to Yemen because here the population is highly armed and actually the Yemeni culture, revenge killings are part of the Yemeni culture.  However, these protestors made the deliberate choice to remain peaceful throughout this and that’s what happened here in Sanaa.

Mullins: What are government authorities saying about what’s transpiring now?

Kasinof: I’m not exactly sure what they government authorities are saying today.  What they said yesterday about the violence is that it was actually the defected military that was shooting at the protestors, not pro-government people.  It was a conflict within the process itself.  This you know, blatantly conflicted with what the protestors were saying and doesn’t really make any sense given the circumstances. I mean today, there has been violence going back and forth between the two sides of the divided armed forces, but still the protestors, they remain peaceful.

Mullins: There has been violence.  There have been ceasefires.  Where are we now with this latest violence that’s been going on?  Where does this bring Yemen?

Kasinof: The problem is in that we were actually very close, Yemen was very close to a political agreement or at least that seemed to be the case, between the ruling party and leaders in the opposition.  Now, these people are working sort of on political reconciliation and political agreements apart from the protest agreement, apart from the military.  This is its own thing that is working toward official transfer of presidential power from the president to the vice president and to work toward early elections.  It seemed like we were coming close to an agreement on that, however, we’re unsure, unclear on how today’s violence is going to affect any sort of political agreement now and it seems it will be much harder for that to happen.

Mullins: Laura Kasinof of the New York Times speaking to us from Sanaa in Yemen.  Thank you, Laura, stay safe.

Kasinof: Great, thanks for having me.

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