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A demonstrator was killed and six others were wounded on Saturday as police opened fire during an operation to remove the body of a dead protester from a hospital in south Yemen, witnesses told AFP.
Witnesses said the gunfire broke out as police guards tried to prevent southern separatists from taking away the body of a demonstrator killed in previous unrest from the Ibn Khaldun hospital in the town of Hutah.
Seven people were wounded, one of whom later died, in the incident in Hutah, close to the southern port city of Aden, according to the witnesses.
The defence ministry's 26sep.net news website, meanwhile, said five "outlaw partisans" involved in riots were arrested in Hutah, but did not mention the shooting at the hospital.
The five were involved in "a number of illegal acts against security and stability," the website said.
South Yemen became an independent state following the end of British rule in 1967. It was united with the north in 1990, when Yemen became the Arabian peninsula's only republic.
Southerners seceded in 1994, sparking a short-lived civil war that ended with the region overrun by northern troops.
Residents of the region who complain of discrimination and a lack of financial aid frequently demonstrate to demand either increased autonomy or independence from the north.
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula.
