CNN News - Witnesses: Security forces fire on Yemen protesters, killing 6, Oct 16, 2011

What's behind escalating Yemen violence?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Activists call the killing of a woman "a scary escalation"
• A doctor treating wounded in Sanaa pleads for blood donations
• Protesters have been calling for Saleh to step down for months
• The government says it is trying to negotiate a solution

(CNN) -- Yemeni security forces opened fired on demonstrators gathering for a planned march in Sanaa on Sunday, killing five people and injuring 54 others, according to a medic on the scene.

In a separate demonstration in the city of Taiz, a woman was killed by a shot to the head from a government sniper, medics and eyewitnesses in Freedom Square Taiz said.

Medics named her as Aziza Othman Kaleb. Four others who were next to her were also injured by the snipers in the march, the same sources said.

Opposition activists in her hometown and in the capital said she was 20 years old and claimed she was the first woman to be killed while marching against the government. CNN could not independently confirm that claim.