Sana’a: Tension increased on Monday in Yemen’s restive southern provinces following the killing of a prominent separatist in the port city of Aden.

Witnesses said on Monday that an armed police vehicle rammed the car of Khalid Al Junaid in Aden’s Crater when he was inspecting a civil disobedience in the city.

The police shot him when he resisted arrest and took him to Aden’s Al Jamhuria hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The death sparked angry protests in cities across the south shortly after pro-independence southerners set off a civil disobedience to pressure government to meet their demands.

Supporters of the Southern Movement, a loose coalition of forces demanding the revival of South Yemen state, have been camping out in the streets of Aden and Muklla since October 14 and vowed to stay put until their demands are met.

Since 2007, the movement has orgranised several massive rallies in the south to push for the secession of southern Yemen, which united with the north in 1990.

Al Junaid was snatched by police on August 31 from the streets of Aden and remained incarcerated for months, prompting international human rights watchdog Human Rights Watch to appeal to the government in September to disclose his whereabouts and release him.

“I write to seek urgent clarification regarding the apparent arrest and enforced disappearance of Khalid Al Junaidi, a 42-year-old southern movement activist, in Crater, Aden on August 31, 2014, allegedly by Special Security Forces (formerly known as Central Security forces),” Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch had written in a letter to the minister of interior.

On November 13, thousands of supporters cheered his release in Aden.

Important figure

Yasser Al Yafae, the editor of Aden-based Yafe News newspaper, said Al Junaid was one of the most vocal pro-secession voices.

“Police harassed him as he is an influential activist who leads activists in Aden in general and Crater in particular.”

Jane Novak, a US-based analyst of Yemeni internal affairs who, advocated the release of Al Junaid, told Gulf News that the slain activist was “a trusted figurehead and as an effective organiser,”.

“A dedicated activist, a measure of Al Junaidi’s effectiveness is the extent to which he was targeted by the Sana’a regime. Khalid was kidnapped, tortured and “disappeared” five times since 2011, most recently in August 2014, for taking part in protests,” she said.

Novak said the killing of Al Junaid will impact the ongoing efforts by the government to appease the growing pro-secession sentiment.

“The brutal loss of such a respected figure will likely have a long-term impact in the south, quashing hope for a federal solution that keeps the state intact and hardening the intractable divide between southern secessionists and the unified state of Yemen,” she said.

Following a civil war in 1994 between north and south Yemen, southerners have complained that the victorious northerners have monopolised power and wealth and dismissed thousands of former army officers and public servants.

But the northerners deny the accusations, saying the southerners are ruling the country since the president and prime minister are from the south.

Novak said: “Southerners view themselves as denied basic rights by the Sana’a regime and subject to a variety of inhumane violations. Mr Al Junaid’s blatant murder reinforces that view.”