Four people including a child were killed in clashes in south Yemen on Tuesday, February 21 between security forces and separatists, who have called for "civil disobedience" in protest at the country's presidential polls, officials and medics said, according to AFP.

Activists from the Southern Movement, who say the election fails to meet their aspirations for autonomy or southern independence, have boycotted the referendum-like elections in which Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi is the sole consensus candidate.

But some factions of the movement have vowed to prevent the polls from taking place at all.

Nationwide protests erupted against Saleh's regime in January 2011, triggering months of bloodshed.

Residents in the formerly independent southern region complain of discrimination by the Sanaa government in the distribution of resources since the union between north and south in 1990.

The south broke away again in 1994, sparking a brief civil war that ended with the region overrun by northern troops.

Hadi, himself a southerner, will become president for a two-year interim period as stipulated in a Gulf-brokered deal signed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh after months of protests against his 33-year-rule.