Clashes between Yemeni security forces and demonstrators have left five people dead, including two soldiers, in the southern province of Shabwa.

The deaths came on Wednesday when security forces and soldiers tried to stop thousands of pro-secession protesters from entering the city, AFP quoted an unnamed local official as saying.

Five people, among them two soldiers, were killed and 10 people were wounded at the entrance of the provincial capital of Ataq, 500 kilometers southeast of Sana'a, he said.

Meanwhile, a rally was scheduled inside the city to mark the British withdrawal from Aden and the independence of the former South Yemen on November 30, 1967.

In 1990, South Yemen joined the larger North but the separatist sentiment in there is still strong.

Yemen's oil-rich provinces in the south have long complained that northerners abuse a unity agreement to sap their resources and discriminate against them.

MRS/AKM