At least two protesters died of gunshots from clashes with police in southern Yemen on Wednesday as anti-government rallies spread across the country.

Besides the two deaths reported in the southern port city of Aden, 14 other people were injured in the nationwide protests that echoed those in Tunisia, Egypt and some other Mideast countries.

Government backers and police officers have already clashed with anti-government protesters for six straight days in the capital. On Wednesday, protesters threw stones at and scuffled with government supporters, while police fired warning shots and pointed rifles at the demonstrators in an attempt to break the crowds.

“People want the regime to fall… People want President (Ali Abdullah) Saleh and his family to leave,” chanted the protesters, mostly complaining about joblessness, depressed economy and corruption.

“Rampant official corruption has been destroying the country and we, the Yemeni people, need the changes and revolution badly,” protester Hamoud Najee said.

Against such a gloomy backdrop, fears are mounting that the massive demonstrations might turn into violent unrest as the ruling party and the opposition coalition spent too much time on bargaining and negotiating.

On Sunday, the opposition coalition agreed to enter a national dialogue with the ruling party and stop organizing protests, but demanded that Saleh must step down in 2013 as he promised.

Meanwhile, the opposition insisted that all the president’s family members be removed from top military and security posts, including his son Ahmed Ali, who was widely believed to be the next president.

However, demonstrations organized spontaneously by students, lawyers and the unemployed still gained increasing momentum.

“Demonstrations have been doubled in the capital Sanaa and southern provinces of Taiz, al-Dhalee, Aden, Abyan and Shabwa since Egypt’s uprising forced the resignation of (Hosni) Mubarak on Feb. 11,” Nabil al-Bukairy, a Sanaa-based researcher, told Xinhua.

“All information indicates that discontented protesters are increasing day by day in major provinces and the demonstrations are likely to expand and turn into violence soon as President Saleh’s government is too weak to resist such cataclysm,” he said.

On Monday, Saleh decided to open his office to hear opinions from the public, in one of a series of concessions he made to tame the spreading chaos in his country and to appease his opponents.

Earlier this month, Saleh, who is in power for 33 years, said at a high-level emergency meeting that he would not pursue re-election or pass power to his son and would also freeze all the controversial constitutional amendments that allow him to be president for life.

The embattled president also pledged to raise salaries of government employees and to provide 60,000 job opportunities for university graduates.

The Yemeni government has carried out a de facto state of emergency since mid-January after mass protests in Tunisia toppled strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Political tensions peaked again after Mubarak was ousted last week.

The current instability added to the already existing troubles of the impoverished Arab country, which had its hands full with a Shiite rebellion in the north, a growing separatist movement in the south and a resurgence of terrorist threats throughout the country.

The northern Shiite rebels on Tuesday declared via the Internet that they would support the Yemeni people against Saleh if a “revolution breaks out.”