SANAA, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Five protesters died and 105 others were injured Sunday in clashes with the police in Yemen, eyewitnesses and official sources said. Thousands of demonstrators demanding the immediate end of the 33-year rule of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh stormed and burned the police station of Dar Saad district in Aden Sunday, in protests against "the use of force by police against Saturday's overnight peaceful demonstrators," eyewitnesses said. Five protesters got wounded in Aden, according to police sources. In the capital Sanaa, about 100 protesters were wounded Sunday by tear gas and shots of live ammunition in clashes with the riot police outside Sanaa University, Nadia Mohamed, a resident near the scene, told Xinhua. Ten of the injured were in critical condition, she said, adding that armored vehicles of security forces were deployed in front of the protest sit-ins in al-Kuwait Street, where around 100,000 demonstrators have been camping out for around three weeks. An official of the Interior Ministry who requested anonymity told Xinhua that 140 riot policemen have been hospitalized due to injuries by stones from protesters outside Sanaa University since Saturday. Ali al-Fakih, a senior protest organizer, told Xinhua Sunday evening that small skirmishes were going on between protesters and riot police near the university as the latter were trying to break up the sit-in. Another five protesters were injured by gunshots in clashes in Al-Ma'afir district in the southern province of Taiz, about 200 km south of Sanaa, according to the opposition media outlet al-islah. net. Protests were also reported Sunday in Al-Hodayda, Ibb, Lahj, Abyan and Hadramout. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for "utmost restraint" to avoid further deterioration of situation in Yemen. Ban said in a statement issued by his spokesman that "he is greatly concerned about the deteriorating situation in Yemen. In particular, he condemns the excessive use of force by the security forces of the Yemeni government against peaceful demonstrators in Sanaa on March 12, which has led to the death of several people and the injuries of many others." Pro-government rallies were also held in Sanaa and Ibb on Sunday. Saleh pledged earlier neither to seek another term nor to pass power to his son, promising to prepare transferring power to the parliament by the end of this year and calling on the opposition to resume dialogue. Besides the nationwide protests it has been witnessing since Feb. 11, the Yemeni government is also struggling to cement a fragile ceasefire deal with the Shiite rebels in the north and to quell a growing separatist movement in the south, while the resurgent al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is rampaging through the country's major cities. Militants of the AQAP killed one policeman and wounded three others in an ambush Sunday in the southern Abyan province, raising the death toll of security and army personnel they targeted since Feb. 11 to 21, according to a Xinhua tally based on security reports.
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