Four killed in south as violence mars Yemen polls

Aden, Feb 21,2012 (AFP): Four people including a child were killed in clashes today in south Yemen between security forces and separatists, who have called for civil disobedience in protest at the country's presidential polls, officials and medics said. A 10-year-old child was killed when militants from the separatist Southern Movement traded gunfire with police near the election commission headquarters in Aden's Dar Saad neighbourhood, residents and medics said. Southern Movement gunmen killed a policeman in Mansura, also in Aden, the main city in the south, a security official said, adding that two others were wounded in Dar Saad. In the southeastern city of Mukalla, separatists attacked a polling station killing a soldier, a military official said. Gunmen from the Southern Movement tried to storm a polling station in the capital of Hadramawt province killing a soldier, the official said, adding the two gunmen were wounded in the assault. Also in Hadramawt, militants wounded two members of the security forces in separate attacks in two different towns, a security official said. In Lahij province, a protester was killed and two others were wounded in clashes between hardline factions of the Southern Movement and security forces, activists from the movement said. Security forces shot dead Fadhl Naser Badie who was among a group of demonstrators gathered outside a polling station in protest against the elections in Huta in Lahij, one activist said. Two other protesters were wounded in the same attack, the source said.