Doctors at a Hudaida hospital said nine people suffered gunshot wounds, 350 fell ill from tear gas inhalation and around 50 had been hurt by plainclothes police hurling rocks.
“They suddenly gathered around the province’s administrative building and headed to the presidential palace, but police stopped them by firing gunshots in the air and using teargas. I saw a lot of plainclothes police attack them too,” a witness told Reuters by phone.
The governor of Taiz later denied anyone had been killed there.
Protests inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have brought Saleh’s 32-year rule to the verge of collapse. But the president, a perennial survivor, called on Sunday for an end to the violence, suggesting he had no intention of resigning soon.
“We call on the opposition coalition to end the crisis by ending sit-ins, blocking roads and assassinations, and they should end the state of rebellion in some military units,” Saleh told visiting supporters from Taiz province on Sunday.
“We are ready to discuss transferring power, but in a peaceful and constitutional framework.”
His ruling party also said it had not received a proposed transition plan from opposition parties that envisages Saleh handing power to a vice president while steps are taken toward creating a national unity government and calling new elections. “We haven’t got it yet,” an official said on Sunday.
Thousands have camped out around Sanaa University since early February, but in the past two weeks Saleh has begun mobilising thousands of his own supporters on the streets.
The position of the United States, a key backer of Saleh whom it sees as an ally against Al-Qaeda, is critical.
Washington has not so far made public statements calling on Saleh to stand down — such calls were key in bringing an end to the rule of Tunisia’s Zine Al-Abidine bin Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. And US officials have talked publicly in recent weeks of their concern about who might succeed Saleh.
But the New York Times, citing US and Yemeni officials, said Washington has concluded Saleh would not likely enact reforms demanded by opposition protesters and must be eased out of office.
The US administration fears Yemen could fragment along tribal and regional lines — a spectre Saleh has raised in speeches — and that this will allow Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to stage more attacks outside Yemen.
Gulf Arab countries have resisted efforts by Sanaa to entice them into mediation and foreign ministers offered a vaguely worded comment on Yemen at a meeting in Riyadh on Sunday.
“On Yemen, there are some ideas that will be addressed to the Yemeni sides. I don’t want to use the word mediation because now we are in a stage of feeling the pulse,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahayan told reporters.
But with no sign of Saleh preparing to give up, protesters and opposition parties appear to be escalating their actions.
Many districts of the port city of Aden, seat of a separatist movement by southerners who say the 1994 unification of South Yemen with Saleh’s north has left them marginalized, was deserted on Sunday in a campaign of civil disobedience.
Most businesses returned to work on Monday but schools remained closed in protest against Saleh.
One soldier was killed and three were wounded in a clash on Sunday with armed men at a checkpoint in Lahej province in the south, an official said, blaming southern separatists. A police colonel and two companions were wounded when men opened fire on their convoy in southern Dalea province, another official said.
Saleh, in power for 32 years, has said he would be prepared to step down within a year after parliamentary and presidential elections and that an abrupt exit would cause chaos.
Under the opposition plan, the army and security forces would be restructured by a vice-president acting as temporary president, the opposition coalition said on Saturday. Wide discussions could then be held on constitutional changes, a unity government and new elections.
Talks have been off and on over the past two weeks, sometimes in the presence of the US ambassador. Sources say Saleh wants to ensure he and his family do not face prosecution over corruption claims that the opposition has talked about.
The death of 52 protesters on March 18, apparently at the hands of government snipers, has been a turning point in the conflict. It led to a string of defections from Saleh’s camp among diplomats, tribal leaders and key generals.
At least 84 people have died so far in the protests.
