Saudi authorities on Sunday executed an Ethiopian woman convicted of murdering a Saudi female with an axe, the 50th death sentence carried out in the kingdom this year, the interior ministry said.

Jinat Farid was found guilty of killing Ghalia Eida al-Harithi by striking her repeatedly with an axe as the victim knelt to perform Muslim prayers, the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

The Saudi-led coalition bombing rebels in Yemen denied Sunday renewed accusations of dropping cluster munitions in the country after U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said their use may be a "war crime".

Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri told AFP that the alliance "denies using cluster bombs in Sanaa", the Yemeni capital.

Anti-Saudi protests were held in Iran on Friday against Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric and after Tehran accused its regional rival of bombing its Yemen embassy.

A week-long diplomatic crisis between the Middle East's leading Sunni and Shiite Muslim powers has raised fears of heightened sectarian tensions across the region.

Three civilians including a child have been killed by shelling from Yemen in a border region of Saudi Arabia, official media said on Friday.

Several shells from Yemeni territory landed in the Jazan region on Thursday evening, the Saudi Press Agency said, citing the civil defense agency.

Turkey said on Thursday it had summoned Iran's ambassador to protest attacks on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Iranian press in the wake of a diplomatic crisis between Tehran and Riyadh.

Erdogan has refused to condemn Saudi Arabia's execution of prominent Shiite cleric and activist Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr this month. The execution sparked outrage in Shiite-majority areas of the Middle East, and protesters in Iran attacked two Saudi diplomatic missions, prompting Riyadh to sever diplomatic ties.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in the conflict in Yemen dropped decades-old U.S.-made cluster bombs in a civilian area, independent monitor Human Rights Watch said Thursday, branding it a war crime.

The group's report included a photograph of a section of casing from a CBU-58 cluster bomb, which it said showed it was manufactured in 1978 at a U.S. ammunition plant in Tennessee.

Somalia said Thursday it had cut diplomatic ties with Iran amid a diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia.

A statement from Somalia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the "decision to sever diplomatic ties" and gave Iranian diplomats 72 hours to leave the Horn of Africa nation.

Iran on Thursday accused Saudi warplanes of deliberately bombing its embassy in Yemen, in a new escalation of diplomatic tensions that have reverberated across the Middle East.

Shiite-dominated Iran also announced a ban on imports of all products from its Sunni-ruled rival, following a dramatic chill in relations that has triggered international alarm.

Iranian diplomats have left Saudi Arabia after the kingdom severed all ties with Tehran following attacks on its mission in the Islamic republic, Saudi state media said on Wednesday.

The staff of the Iranian embassy in Riyadh and those of the consulate in Jeddah left "on board a private Iranian plane," state news agency SPA reported.

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday executed a citizen convicted of murder, raising to 49 the number of death sentences carried out in the first week of 2016, the interior ministry announced.

Saud bin Mohammed al-Shalwi was convicted of shooting dead Mohammed bin Safar al-Harithi following a dispute, the ministry said in a statement published on the official SPA news agency.