A 15-year-old Yemeni girl was burned to death by her father for getting in touch with her fiance before their wedding, police say.

The 35-year-old man was arrested after the teenager's death in the remote village of Shabaa, in Taiz province.

"The father committed this heinous crime on the pretext that his daughter had been keeping in contact with her fiance," a police statement claimed.

Local news websites said he had caught the pair chatting on the telephone.

Traditional tribal customs in some parts of Yemen prohibit contact between men and women before marriage.

Last year, the UN Human Rights council raised concerns about so-called "honour killings" in the country. Perpetrators were not charged with murder, and faced only a six-month to one-year prison sentence, it found.

Accorded a low status in the family and community, many Yemeni women are subjected to various forms of violence, deprivation of education, early and forced marriages, sexual abuse, restrictions over freedom of movement, forced pregnancy, and female genital mutilation.

Last month, there was an outcry after an eight-year-old girl reportedly died of internal bleeding on the night she wed a 40-year-old man.