Senior officials escape Yemen bomb, 4 dead

A car bomb targeting the governor's convoy has shaken Yemen's southern port city of Aden, killing at least four people, security and military sources say.

Governor Ahmed Lamlas and Agriculture Minister Salem al-Suqatri, both members of a southern separatist group, survived a "terrorist assassination attempt" on Sunday, the state news agency said.

At least four soldiers in the convoy were killed, a security source said.

A military spokesman of the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) said at least five people were injured including three civilians, one of them a child.

A body covered with a blanket lay on the street next to a charred vehicle in al-Tawahi district, which houses the STC headquarters. Firefighters and police were deployed to the area.

Lamlas is secretary general of the STC, which has vied with the Saudi-backed government for control of Aden and Yemen's wider south. STC has also seen infighting among its ranks.

The government and the STC are nominal allies under a coalition led by Saudi Arabia which has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

Instability in the south complicates United Nations-led peace efforts to end the war in Yemen which has killed tens of thousands of people and left 80 per cent of the population reliant on aid.