SANAA (Agencies)
One person was killed and four injured in southern Yemen on Wednesday during clashes between government security forces and protesters refused entry into the army, witnesses said.
The clashes took place in the province of Lahj on a fourth day of demonstrations in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.
Dozens of people were rounded up by security forces on Tuesday, including three politicians from the opposition Yemen Socialist Party (YSP), in a swoop of activists suspected of inciting protests in the provinces of Aden, Lahj and Dhaleh, relatives said.
The protesters say a number of men from the region were not admitted into the army after responding to a recruitment campaign.
Poverty and unemployment are fuelling discontent in southern Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries outside Africa.
State jobs or joining the army are among the main sources of employment and more than half the workforce is in the agricultural sector.
One diplomat estimated unemployment at 17 percent.
Armoured vehicles have been deployed to restore order in several towns in the oil-producing south of the Arab country.
The south is home to only a fifth of Yemen's 22 million people but it generates much of its revenue. Up to 80 percent of oil production comes from the area which also has fisheries and Aden's port and refinery.
In recent months, protests spearheaded by former soldiers demanding pension rights have met a tough response from the security forces, and several people have been killed or wounded.
Last year Yemen banned protests and demonstrations organized without the authorisation of the government and said it would take legal action against those who ignored the ban.
Residents of southern Yemen often complain of discrimination since a 1994 southern secession bid led by socialists, which sparked a two-month civil war and was crushed by northern forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The former south Yemen merged with the north in May 1990. |
