Yemen military officials join anti-government protests

Yemen’s senior military officials have joined anti-government demonstrators who have camped out in Liberation Square in the capital Sana’a.

The move came on Tuesday amid demonstrations, calling for an end to the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
The protesters accuse the president of failing to deliver on his promise for change, and seek to revive the 2011 revolution which came to an end a year later without their demands being met.
During the revolution, the capital’s Liberation Square was the focal point of protests demanding an end to the decades-long regime of the then dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years, stepped down in February 2012 under a US-backed power transfer deal in return for immunity from prosecution.
His vice president, Hadi, replaced him on February 25, 2012 following a single-candidate presidential election backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Yemen is the Arab world’s poorest country. Forty percent of the people of Yemen are living on two US dollars a day or less and one third are wrestling with chronic hunger.