Yemen security forces kill prominent separatist leader

ADEN // Yemeni security forces shot dead a prominent leader in the southern separatist Herak Movement in Aden on Monday, ratcheting up tensions in the city where residents have been observing a weekly protest to push for independence.

Rising demands for separation by southern separatists have been one of several challenges facing President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi since he took office three years ago after mass protests forced his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.

Khaled Al Junaidi, a prominent figure in the Southern Movement, was shot in the chest when security forces opened fire while trying to arrest him, Herak activists said.

Police said he was hit when security forces fired to disperse a demonstration in the city.

The local Aden Al Ghad newspaper quoted medics as saying members of the security forces brought Junaidi with a gun shot wound to Jumhouriya hospital, where he died soon after. It posted pictures of a man on a stretcher on its website.

Junaidi, in his 30s, was released from prison earlier this month after serving five months in detention for his role as a Herak leader.

The separatist group recently sought to escalate its fight for independence by calling for a weekly civil disobedience day every Monday.

Most businesses and schools in Aden were closed in response to the call for the demonstration to demand the secession of the formerly independent south.

Meanwhile, a street vendor was shot dead by southern separatists in Hadramawt province in the southeast, witnesses said.

The gunmen opened fire as the man, from north Yemen, failed to stop at a checkpoint, triggering a confrontation between the militants and other residents of northern origin.

South Yemen became independent after the end of British colonial rule in 1967, before it joined the north in 1990. Secessionists failed in a civil war in 1994 to reverse the unification.

Since mid-October, the Southern Movement has staged a sit-in in central Aden to demand secession.

Separatists say Sanaa has plundered the former socialist South Yemen in favour of northern officials – especially under Mr Saleh’s rule – and treats them as second class-citizens.

Mr Hadi’s government has vowed to correct wrongs against southern Yemenis and compensate thousands of civil servants or former army officers and soldiers fired from their posts after the 1994 war, or restore them to their posts.

Apart from southern separatists, Mr Hadi’s government faces an Al Qaeda threat in the southern and eastern part of the country and a major challenge from Shiite Muslim Houthi militias who seized control of Sanaa in September in what they said was a drive against corruption.

* Reuters and Agence France-Presse