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Yemen: Confusion in Sanaa Amid Conflicting News on Saleh

Categories: Middle East & North Africa, Yemen, Breaking News, Politics, Protest, War & Conflict

This post is part of our special coverage Yemen Protests 2011 [1].

The Yemeni capital Sanaa plunged into chaos this afternoon, with conflicting reports circulating about Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. While some reports say he had fled the presidential palace in Sanaa, others are reporting that he was injured in clashes. Some even went to announce his death.

Here's a round up of reactions from Twitter in the previous hour.

Mohamed Abdel Daymen tweets [2]:

#Saleh “light injuries” now confirmed by multiple reliable sources. So at least that much is true.

An anti-government protester outside Sana'a University shows the words 'Go Out' to Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Image by Flickr user AJTalkEng (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). [3]

An anti-government protester outside Sana'a University shows the words 'Go Out' to Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Image by Flickr user AJTalkEng (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Al Jazeera English confirms [4]:

 

Officials: #Yemeni President Ali Abdullah #Saleh is wounded but alive. Read more on our live blog: http://aje.me/mPUHeO

And Ali Hashem, Al Jazeera's Arabic correspondent, adds [5]:

Yemeni official: President Ali Saleh will talk to the public soon

And quips [6]:

Saleh is confirmed to have escaped death, lucky him

Andy Carvin attempts to summarize the situation saying [7]:

So to summarize, Yemeni pres Saleh is/isn't/could be/perhaps is/supposedly/according to twitter/according to Reuters/sort of/who knows dead.

News of Saleh's injuries, and possible death, raised hope in the Twittersphere, that the Arab world will soon have one less dictator.

Egyptian Mona Eltahawy tweets [8]:

We are long overdue a Friday of Departure of Despised Dictator. #Yemen's Ali Abdulla #Saleh: could you be next? Yalla, Yemen!

Back in Yemen, the confusion continues. Ibrahim Mothana writes [9]:

I am LOST in Translation!! A lot of conflicting news and report coming from #Sanaa NOW. #Yemen #Saleh

Amel tweets [10]:

Sanaa is chaos. Shooting everywhere. We're headed to american embassy #Yemen #yf

This post is part of our special coverage Yemen Protests 2011 [1].