Yemeni police opened fire on protesters in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday, wounding at least 50 people demonstrating for an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule, witnesses said.
Three of the wounded were in a serious condition, they said. Policemen and security agents in civilian clothes opened fire as they tried to prevent people from joining thousands of protesters who have camped out for weeks in front of Sanaa University, the witnesses told Reuters.
There was no immediate government comment. Police brought out water cannon and placed concrete blocks around Sanaa University, the rallying point for anti-Saleh protest that had been quiet in recent days, after weeks of fierce clashes across the country between government loyalists and protesters that killed at least 27 people.
Around 10,000 protesters marched in the city of Dhamar, 60 km (40 miles) south of Sanaa, residents said by telephone. Dhamar is known for ties to Saleh and is the hometown of Yemen's prime minister, interior minister and head judge.
"Leave! leave!" the protesters shouted in Dhamar, just two days after Saleh loyalists there held a similar-sized rally. Protesters also pelted a municipal official with rocks.
Burgeoning protests fuelled by anger over poverty and corruption, and a series of defections from Saleh's political and tribal allies, have added pressure on him to step aside this year even as he pledges to stay on until his term ends in 2013.