Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters are celebrating what they described as the fall of the Yemeni government after Ali Abdullah Saleh, the long-serving president, left the country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

Medical sources say the president is undergoing surgery to remove shrapnel and that he has sustained burns to his upper body (after an attack by anti-government forces on his compound). 

“Today, Yemen is newborn,” sang dozens of youths on Sunday in Sanaa’s University Square, dubbed “Change Square”, which has been the epicentre of anti-government protests that have raged since February.

Protesters also danced and slaughtered cows to revel in the Saleh’s departure. In Yemen’s second-largest city Taiz, a flashpoint of anti-government demonstrations south of the capital Sanaa, hundreds also celebrated, chanting: “Freedom, freedom, Ali has fled”.

Saudi officials said Saleh was in the capital, Riyadh, for treatment only and that the visit was not a political one.

And a ruling party official, Tareq al-Shami, told the Reuters news agency that Saleh would be back in Sanaa within days.

But Yemen’s opposition has vowed not to let Saleh return from Saudi Arabia.

“We will work with all our strength to prevent his return,” Mohammed Qahtan, Yemeni parliamentary opposition spokesman, told the AFP news agency. “We see this as the beginning of the end of this tyrannical and corrupt regime.”For more on this historic news, read the rest of the story at Al Jazeera English.