Snipers kill 31 Yemen protestors

Yemeni government snipers have killed at least 31 people as they fired on a crowd of thousands of anti-government demonstrators.

The protest in the central square of the capital Sanaa was the largest yet in the popular uprising that began a month ago – and the harsh government response marked a new level of brutality from the security forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Dozens of enraged protesters stormed several buildings that were the source of the gunfire, detaining 10 people including paid thugs who they said would be handed over to judicial authorities.

Demonstrators have camped out in squares across Yemen for over a month to demand that Saleh leave office.

Security forces and pro-government thugs have used live fire, rubber bullets, tear gas, sticks, knives and rocks to suppress them. The protesters say they will not leave until Saleh does.

Before the shooting in Sanaa, a military helicopter flew low over the square as protesters arrived from prayers.

Gunfire soon erupted from rooftops and houses above the demonstrators, where eyewitnesses said beige-clad elite forces and plainclothes security officials took aim.

Other police used burning tyres and petrol to make a wall of fire that blocked demonstrators from fleeing down a main road leading to sensitive locations, including the president’s residence.

Panic and chaos swept the square, where dozens of dead and wounded sprawled on the ground. Witnesses said the snipers aimed at heads, chests and necks. Protesters carried their friends, scarves pressed over bleeding wounds.

“It is a massacre,” said Mohammad al-Sabri, an opposition spokesman. “This is part of a criminal plan to kill off the protesters, and the president and his relatives are responsible for the bloodshed in Yemen today.”

Doctors at the makeshift field hospital near the protest camp at Sanaa University confirmed at least 31 dead, three of them children.