Security forces intervened to disperse the protesters, who set alight tyres and placed boulders in the streets to block traffic before police killed “two vendors” and wounded three other people, witnesses said. - AP (File Photo)

ADEN: Two civilians were killed and three others injured overnight during clashes with police in a village of Yemen's southeastern Hadramawt province, witnesses and medics said on Thursday.

The violence broke out after hundreds of people took to the streets of Shahr village on Wednesday night to protest after a policeman killed a young villager last week, said the witnesses.

Security forces intervened to disperse the protesters, who set alight tyres and placed boulders in the streets to block traffic before police killed “two vendors” and wounded three other people, they said.

A medical official confirmed the toll.

The clashes continued late into the night, with some protesters setting shops on fire, according to residents contacted by AFP on the phone from Aden, the main city in Yemen's south.

Tensions are high in southern and southeastern Yemen, where unrest has grown as the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been weakened by protests demanding his ouster since January.