DUBAI: A Yemeni father has burned his 15-year-old daughter to death for keeping in touch with her fiancé, police said, sparking further outrage in Yemen, where an eight-year-old girl died from internal bleeding on her wedding night a month ago.

Police said a 35-year-old man had been arrested after the teenager's death in a remote village in the central Taiz province.

“The father committed this heinous crime on the pretext that his daughter had been keeping contacts with her fiancé,” the police website said on Tuesday, giving no further details.

Some local news websites reported that the father had caught the girl chatting by telephone with her fiancé.

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

Poverty and concern about “family honour” prompts many Yemenis to marry off their daughters young, often below the age of 18, a practice that has been criticised by international rights groups.

Yemeni authorities said last month they were investigating the death of the eight-year-old girl in northern Yemen, and that they would prosecute those responsible.