Hundreds of Yemeni government loyalists armed with batons and daggers on Wednesday assaulted student demonstrators in the sixth day of anti-government protests in the capital, Sana'a. The students responded by throwing stones at their attackers. At least four people were wounded in the clashes as hundreds of students tried to march from Sana'a University toward the city centre on Wednesday.Police tried to keep the two sides apart by blocking some students from leaving the university and firing shots into the air, but the fighting escalated. However, the students vowed to keep marching from the university in their campaign to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The anti-Saleh protests began last Friday inspired by an 18-day Egyptian uprising that forced the country's president to step down that day. Yemen is one of the world's poorest nations and is beset by several internal conflicts, involving southern secessionists, northern rebels and al-Qaida insurgents.