UN chief calls for peaceful solution in Yemen

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday he was "deeply troubled" by bloody clashes in Yemen, and called on the parties to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Ban "is deeply troubled by the violent clashes in the center of Sanaa between the security forces of the government and armed tribesmen that have left many people dead and wounded," said his spokesman Martin Nesirky.

Three days of fighting has killed more than 44 people in the Yemeni capital, according to an AFP tally Wednesday based on reports by medics, the government and tribesmen.

The neighborhood of al-Hasaba in the north of Sanaa, where the fighting was fiercest, was cut off from the rest of the city Wednesday and remained tense, with civilians in the area trying to flee the violence.

Nesirky said Ban "is concerned that this confrontation might further destabilize the situation and calls for an immediate end to the fighting.

"The secretary general strongly urges all sides to continue efforts aimed at finding a peaceful resolution of Yemen's political crisis," Nesirky added.

Earlier Wednesday, US President Barack Obama repeated his call for Yemen leader Ali Abdullah Saleh to quit, as clansmen loyal to a powerful opposition tribal chief, Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, seized buildings and battled security forces in the capital.

"We call upon President Saleh to move immediately on his commitment to transfer power," Obama said at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron in London.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011