Cairo, Mar 16 (Bureau) Demonstrators on Tuesday stormed Yemen’s presidential palace in the interim capital of Aden in southern Yemen in protest of deteriorating living conditions and the non-payment of salaries to public employees, a government source told Sputnik. “Hundreds of protesters organized a rally … in the Crater area against the withholding of salaries, and it quickly turned into a march that reached the gates of the Maasheeq presidential palace, where a headquarters of the Southern Transitional Council [STC] is located,” the source said.
Rally participants raised a separatist flag that the STC uses as a symbol of the state that it seeks to establish in the southern provinces of Yemen, the source added, noting that the protesters crossed three security barriers and stormed the palace’s gates, chanting anti-government slogans. In mid-December, the country’s president announced the creation of a new power-sharing government consisting of 24 ministers in line with the terms of the Riyadh peace deal concluded with Yemen’s separatist STC in November 2019. The new cabinet sits in the temporary capital of Aden, as the official one, Sanaa, has been under the control of the Houthi movement since September 2014.