Summary An army tank shelled a funeral tent in Yemen on Friday, killing 13 people including children.
ADEN (AFP) - An army tank shelled a funeral tent erected by the Southern Movement at a school in Yemen on Friday, killing 13 people including children, a medic and witnesses said.
Tensions are running high in the formerly independent south, home to an increasingly assertive secessionist movement, raising fears that Al-Qaeda's powerful Yemen affiliate could exploit the growing unrest in the Arab world's poorest country.
A long-running dispute over whether and how to grant the south limited autonomy has hindered the political transition following the 33-year rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down last year following Arab Spring-inspired protests.
"Thirteen people have died, among them three children" in the attack, a medic from Al-Nasr hospital in the southern province of Daleh told AFP. Medics at other hospitals said more than 20 people were wounded, some critically.
Witnesses said a tank shelled the tent in Sanah, 300 kilometres (185 miles) south of the capital, with one telling AFP that troops had kept firing "when we tried to hospitalise the casualties", adding that "there are wounded victims still inside the tent".
Witnesses later the wounded were finally evacuated.
The Southern Movement -- which is campaigning for autonomy or outright secession -- had set up the tent for mourners paying their condolences after a man was killed in clashes with security forces on Monday.
The clashes in Daleh erupted when secessionists tried to storm the governorate building to hoist the flag of the former South Yemen. The fighting left two Yemeni policemen and a civilian dead.
State news agency Saba quoted a top security official as saying that President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has formed a committee to investigate Friday's attack.
Violence has intensified in the south amid anger over the killing of local tribal chief Said Ben Habrish and his bodyguards at an army checkpoint earlier this month after they refused to hand over their weapons. Two soldiers were also killed in the exchange.
On Thursday, gunmen killed four soldiers and wounded several others in an attack on a checkpoint in the southeast Hadramawt province, an Al-Qaeda stronghold.
