The battles continued on Saturday between the Yemeni government forces and southern separatists for the sixth consecutive day in Abyan governorate, and resulted in the death of 14 elements from both sides, according to several military sources.
The sources said that the separatist forces affiliated with the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council repelled an attack by government forces aimed at controlling Zanzibar, the most prominent city of Abyan governorate, southeast of Aden.
The sources pointed out that the confrontations in which the two sides exchanged missile and artillery shelling - each of its locations - extended along the fighting fronts in Sheikh Salem and Al-Tara regions.
Eyewitnesses in the city of Zanzibar said that military reinforcements with armored vehicles and machines loaded with weapons reached the forces of the Transitional Council, and military reinforcements for government forces also arrived from Shabwa governorate in eastern Yemen.
For his part, a government military official, who asked not to be named, said, "Fourteen people were killed, including ten soldiers of the government forces."
A separatist military source confirmed this toll, and spoke of "the capture of forty government soldiers, including the commander of Brigade 115, Brigadier General Saif al-Qafish, and the seizure of the brigade's weapons and military vehicles."
These battles are the first military confrontation on this scale since the separatists declared "self-administration" in the south of the country on April 26, after the failure to implement a peace agreement with the government stipulating power-sharing between the two parties.