SANAA (Reuters) - Government forces have arrested 16 people on suspicion of separatist activity in southern Yemen, security sources said on Saturday.
Yemen, the poorest Arab country, is battling secessionists in the south, a Shi"ite insurgency in the north and a resurgent al Qaeda, whose local arm claimed responsibility for a failed December 25 bomb attempt on a U.S. plane approaching Detroit.
Those arrested were accused of taking part in unauthorized protests and jeopardizing security and unity in the Arabian Peninsula country, the sources said.
Some group members were carrying anti-government leaflets and banners, and others had attacked security forces with stones, they said. Further details were not immediately available about the arrests, which took place in three provinces late on Friday.
People in the south, home to most of Yemen"s oil facilities, have long complained that northerners have abused a 1990 agreement which united the long-divided country to seize their resources and discriminate against them.
Separately, the United Nations Development Programme called for urgent aid for the 250,000 people displaced by the conflict in the north, which has flared on and off since 2004.
The northern rebels and the government agreed last week to a truce to end the war, but previous ceasefires have not held.
UNDP administrator Helen Clark expressed hope in a statement that "the international community would react positively to the ceasefire by providing urgently needed resources in response to the humanitarian needs caused by the conflict and to allow early recovery from the conflict to begin."
International donors met in London last month to discuss how to help Yemen tackle al Qaeda after Yemeni-based militants said they were behind the failed Christmas Day plane bombing.
Pledging broad support for Yemen, they also pressed for an end to the conflict in the north to make it easier for billions of dollars of previously promised foreign aid to be disbursed.
Gulf Arab and other donors plan to meet again in Riyadh on February 27-28 to discuss aid and reforms with the Sanaa government.
Of Yemen"s population of 23 million, more than 40 percent live on less than $2 a day.
In the south, two policemen were wounded in an attack by gunmen in the town of Dalea on Saturday, residents said.
On Friday, security sources said separatists killed the director of a police criminal investigations unit in an ambush on his vehicle in southern Yemen. Another person died and three were injured in the shooting.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Mushashef in Aden; writing by Tamara Walid and Firouz Sedarat; editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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