Saturday, January 29, 2011

Fourth immolation by fire in Yemen

A 28-year Yemen has attempted to set themselves on fire Wednesday night at Aden, the main city in southern Yemen, reported, Thursday, Jan. 27, witnesses said. This brings to four the number of people who tried to immolate himself and Yemen in recent days. One of them succumbed to his injuries. Wednesday, Fouad Sabry, a bus station employee, was doused with gasoline and then cracked a match on a square of one of the main districts of Aden, witnesses said, adding that bystanders quickly intervened to extinguish the fire.

Mr Sabri would have committed this act of desperation because of his poor living conditions, residents said. Burned over large parts of the body, he was admitted to a hospital in Aden, where he was placed in an intensive care unit, said at one medical source. Local authorities reported that at least three other attempts at self-immolation had been taken in recent days in southern and northern Yemen, a poor country, affected by unemployment and confronted with a secessionist movement in the South and a resurgence of Al Qaeda operations.

Following one such attempt, a 45 year old man, Awadh Saleh al-Samah, died Jan. 20 in a village in Hadramout, one day after he set himself on fire in the presence of his children to protest against its economic difficulties, said Thursday at a local official. Inspired by the revolt and a Tunisian opposition movement in Egypt, thousands of Yemenis demonstrated Thursday in Sana'a (portfolio) to the call of the opposition to demand the ouster of President Ali Abdallah Saleh, in power for thirty-two years.

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