At least 35 killed and hundreds wounded in capital of Sana'a after government troops and loyalists open fire on marchers

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

At least 35 people have been shot dead and hundreds wounded in Sana'a after soldiers and plain-clothed government loyalists opened fired on protesters trying to march through the Yemeni capital.

The death toll, which is expected to rise, is the highest seen in more than a month of violence in Yemen, with protesters demanding that President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.

The protest on Friday had started peacefully. Tens of thousands filled a mile-long stretch of road by Sana'a University for a prayer ceremony mourning the loss of seven protesters killed in similar violence last weekend.

As the prayers came to an end, however, the sight of black smoke from a burning car caught the attention of protesters, who began surging towards it.

Witnesses say the first shots were fired by security forces trying to disperse the protesters and they were joined by plain-clothed men who fired on the demonstrators with Kalashnikovs from the roofs of nearby houses.

A nearby mosque was transformed into a chaotic makeshift hospital for injured protesters. The wounded, most of them men in their early 20s, were suffering from the effects of teargas and bullet wounds, many having been shot in the chest.

The dead were carried into the mosque's main prayer room and laid out in a line with miniature Qur'ans on their chests.

"They shot people in the back of the head as they were running away," said Mohammed al-Jamil, an Indian doctor treating the wounded. "Whoever did this wanted these people to die."

Children were also caught up in the violence.

"My brother is twelve years old, they shot him twice, once in the arm and once in the leg," shouted a young man through a crackling microphone to a roaring crowd of thousands outside the mosque. "Saleh would rather shoot us all before stepping down."

Until now government forces have largely used water cannons, rubber bullets and teargas to disperse anti-regime rallies, but live rounds were fired on Friday in what appears be the beginning of an increasingly violent crackdown on protesters.

Anti-government demonstrations were held in other cities, including Taiz, Ibb, Hodeidah, Aden and Amran, following Friday prayers at midday.

Yemen, the youngest and poorest country in the Arab world, has been hit by weeks of protests set in motion by uprisings in north Africa that toppled long-serving leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and spread to the Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Saleh has maintained a firm grip on power for more than three decades and has rejected calls for him to step down, saying he will only do so when his current term of office expires in 2013.