Clashes erupted between Yemeni security forces and hundreds of separatist protesters on Sunday, leaving at least one demonstrator killed and five others wounded in the southeastern province of Hadramout, witnesses and medics said, Xinhua reported.
The security forces fired live ammunition after some separatist protesters attempted to storm a police station headquarters in downtown Hadramout's provincial capital of al-Mukalla city, a witness told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Medics at a nearby hospital in the coastal city of al-Mukalla, where the injured protesters were treated, confirmed to Xinhua the toll, saying that "some of them were gravely injured and they are in critical condition."
"The protesters were demanding the immediate release of their friends who were arrested earlier in the day during a campaign on a separatist encampment by the police forces," a member of the pro- separatism Southern Movement said.
"On Saturday night, the security officers destroyed our encampment intentionality," he said.
The separatist leaders said earlier this week that they would boycott the February presidential election and urged the southern people to "burn their voting cards and to resist the elections in non-violent ways."
The northern and southern parts of Yemen were unified in 1990 according to a deal between former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ruling General People's Congress party and the Yemeni Socialist Party. However, the deal fell apart, leading to a crisis between the two sides, which developed into a civil war in 1994.
Separatists who want to end the north-south union are demanding independence in response to the alleged discrimination by the northern people and lack of financial aid.