Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh has used his nation's strategic spot on the Horn of Africa to unlock international investment, while keeping a firm hand on the reins of power since taking over in 1999.

The portly polyglot with a salt and pepper beard was re-elected in polls Friday, having broken his promise not to run for a fourth term.

Voters in Djibouti went to the polls on Friday, with iron-fisted ruler Ismail Omar Guelleh expected to extend his 17-year rule in the strategic African nation courted by world powers.

Six candidates are vying for the presidency in the tiny Horn of Africa country, whose location at the gateway to the Red Sea has attracted powers such as the U.S., France and China as a prime location for military bases.

At least seven civilians were killed and scores of people wounded in clashes in Djibouti, the foreign minister said Tuesday, insisting the situation was now under control a day after the unrest.

Violence flared before dawn on Monday when police broke up a traditional religious ceremony in Buldhoqo district, close to the capital Djibouti, trying to move the people to a better site, Djiboutian Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf told AFP by telephone.

The Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti has launched the maiden flight of its national airline -- a company managed by Iron Maidan lead singer Bruce Dickinson, officials said Tuesday.

Air Djibouti, which went bankrupt in 2002, relaunched flights on Monday, with a cargo plane carrying six tonnes from Djibouti to Somalia, to Hargeisa, the capital of self-declared Somaliland.

Djibouti appealed Monday for aid after ​​hundreds of Yemeni refugees fleeing civil war arrived in the Horn of African nation, adding to thousands already being supported.

"The refugees arriving have lost everything," said presidential spokesman Naguib Ali Taher, adding they needed shelter as well as medical care, including psychological support.

United Nations officials in the Horn of Africa port of Djibouti said Saturday they had taken charge of the aid cargo carried by an Iranian boat headed for war-torn Yemen.

The vessel, the MV Shahed, is carrying 2,500 tonnes of aid including flour, rice, canned food, medical supplies and bottled water, all urgently needed in the conflict-wracked state just across the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti.

Iran said on Wednesday its aid ship bound for war-torn Yemen is to dock in Djibouti for inspection, heading off a potential confrontation with the United States.

The aid "will be inspected in Djibouti. The ship will dock in Djibouti and the protocol laid down by the United Nations will be implemented," Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, quoted by the ISNA news agency.

Dwarfed by warships and giant cargo vessels, the small wooden boats that brave the dangerous crossing between the Horn of Africa and Yemen are a lifeline for the desperate thousands fleeing war.

Each day they come from the Arabian Peninsula to Djibouti, crossing the waters of the Bab al-Mandeb strait -- the "Gate of Tears" in Arabic -- the key shipping channel of the Gulf of Aden.

An Iranian ship purportedly carrying aid to Yemen should change course and head to Djibouti where the United Nations is overseeing humanitarian deliveries, U.S. officials demanded Tuesday.

The U.S. military is tracking the ship after Tehran reportedly said it would send warships to escort the vessel to Yemen, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told reporters.

Djibouti's president has warned Yemen's civil war and a resurgent al-Qaida pose a threat to the Middle East, but pledged continuing support to refugees fleeing the conflict, he told Agence France Presse in an interview.

Ismail Omar Guelleh said the war in Yemen, on the other side of a narrow sea channel from the Horn of African nation of Djibouti, was stoking dangerous rivalries between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, bolstering al-Qaida's franchise in the country and posing wider risks for the region.