As dawn broke over Yemen’s capital on Saturday morning, confusion over the condition of President Ali Abdullah Saleh after a mortar attack on his presidential compound convinced most Sana’a denizens to remain in their homes following a night filled with the sound of gunfire and shelling. Makeshift roadblocks controlled by armed neighborhood residents were put in place across major highways as well as small surface roads in an effort to contain the intense violence that Sana’a has been witness to for 11 days.
In one of the last remaining minibuses in operation in the capital, men argued over the president’s condition, some even insisting that he was dead. “Just because we heard a voice on state television that sounded like Saleh’s doesn’t mean he’s alive,” said one man, referring the president’s failure to appear before cameras, releasing a recorded statement instead.
Members of Yemen’s pro-democracy movement continue to remain skeptical about Saleh’s whereabouts and the Saudis’ motives. “This is absolutely despicable,” said Jamal Nasser, spokesman for the Coordinating Council of the Youth Revolution of Change, Yemen’s largest protest organization. “After all we have sacrificed, after all the lives that were lost, Saudi and Saleh are trying to dupe us again. This isn’t the end. There will be more violence. Saleh isn’t done yet.” The president has reneged again and again on supposed deals for his departure.
Meanwhile the protesters who have taken up residence in Sana’a’s Change Square have been quietly huddled in their tents in recent days, in stark contrast to the usual boisterous and jovial atmosphere of the camp. Amid the fighting between tribal warriors and Saleh’s loyalists, they have been watching the mountains that surround the valley in which the capital lies. At the peaks of these mountains are artillery batteries, the same batteries that, for the last 11 days, have pounded Sana’a and the positions taken up in the city by the tribesmen. As these mountaintop guns fire on their targets, just before the boom of the shell’s impact, residents of Change Square say that they can sometimes hear the hiss of shells as they fly over. “We aren’t going anywhere,” said Mohammed al-Hindi, a former soldier now living in the square. “But we still pray for peace,” he added, nervously watching the sky.
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