Yemeni protester shot dead after seperatist march

Police on Tuesday shot dead a protester during clashes in south Yemen where separatists called for a day of civil disobedience to mark the 22nd anniversary of the country's reunification, medics and witnesses said.

"A man was killed and seven others were wounded, one of them seriously," a medical official told AFP.

The clashes took place after protesters used rocks to block roads, set tyres alight, and closed shops in the capital of Hadramawt province, witnesses said.

The day of civil disobedience was called by the hardline faction of the Southern Movement, headed by Yemen's former vice president Ali Salem al-Baid, which advocates independence for the south.

The strike was also observed in other provinces in the south – Lahij and Daleh – while a partial strike was observed in the neighborhoods of Mansoura and Mualla in Aden, the capital of what was formerly known as South Yemen.

South Yemen was independent before merging with former North Yemen in 1990.

Some factions of the Southern Movement want autonomy for the south, but more hardline members are pressing for a return to complete independence.

The coalition, which began in 2007 as a social protest movement of retired officials and soldiers, gradually became more radicalized.

Residents in Yemen's formerly-independent south complain of discrimination by the Sanaa government, citing an inequitable distribution of resources since the 1990 union.

(AFP)