(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - "A policeman was killed and another wounded in clashes when security forces intervened after gunmen from the Southern Movement blocked roads" in the port city of Aden on Saturday, AFP quoted General Abdulhafez al-Saqqaf, head of central security services, as saying.
Government troops also shot dead a pro-secession activist in the city earlier in the day. Two other activists were also wounded in the incident. The separatist Southern Movement confirmed that the victims belonged to the group.
Meanwhile, police reportedly killed another protester in the town of Ghail Bawazir in Hadramawt Province also on Saturday, when similar clashes occurred.
The Southern Movement said protesters were angry at the Thursday’s massacre, in which security forces opened fire on pro-independence protesters in Aden, killing five people and injuring a dozen others.
North and south Yemen unified in 1990 after the southern government collapsed. Northern troops took control of the south after winning a civil war in 1994.
The Southern Movement gained strength during mass demonstrations which forced former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down in February 2012.
The secessionist movement calls for autonomy or the complete independence of the south. Southerner residents complain that they have been economically and politically marginalized by the central government.
The government called on separatists to participate in national reconciliation talks scheduled to be held in mid-March.
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