More than 300,000 people have fled fighting in western Yemen, UN migration agency says
More than 300,000 people have fled their homes in western Yemen, almost all of them in the past two months, the International Organization for Migration said on Sunday, warning that displaced families urgently need shelter, food, clean water and health care.
More than 300,000 people have fled their homes in western Yemen because of intensifying fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces, the United Nations migration agency said on Sunday. Almost all of the displacement has happened in the past two months, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which said the displaced families urgently need shelter, food, clean water and health care.
“After years of conflict, families in Yemen are being forced to flee yet again, often with little more than the clothes on their backs,” Abdusattor Esoev, the IOM chief of mission in Yemen, said in the agency’s statement. The warning, reported by AFP, Arab News and the Khaleej Times on Sunday, gives the clearest measure yet of the human cost of the fighting that has reignited Yemen’s war in recent months.
The scale of the movement is concentrated in a small number of places. According to IOM figures, more than 43,000 people have fled Al-Madaribah Wa Al-Aarah in Lahj province since the start of October, the highest number for any district in the country. The situation is also deteriorating in Taiz province, with many families heading south to Aden, which now hosts more than 56,000 displaced people.
In the city of Taiz itself, clashes have cut off access to neighbouring areas and driven sharp increases in the price of many essentials, with some items rising up to fivefold, the agency said. That combination — blocked roads and unaffordable food — has left families unable to afford basic supplies even where shops are still operating, turning a displacement crisis into a daily struggle for survival.
The IOM said it has deployed five mobile medical teams across Taiz, Marib, Lahj and Aden, but that demand continues to outpace its response. The agency said it needs 45 million dollars over the next six months to provide emergency assistance as displacement grows and families struggle to afford food and other necessities.
The latest figures sit alongside a slightly different United Nations count that underlines how fast the numbers are moving. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported more than 290,000 people displaced since fighting escalated in August, a figure announced on 30 October. The IOM’s higher figure, published on Sunday, reflects the continued movement since then and a different counting basis, and both counts point in the same direction: displacement is still rising, with no sign that the fighting is subsiding.
The human detail behind the totals is stark. The UN Population Fund said nearly 6,100 pregnant women were among those recently displaced, including about 600 expected to give birth within two weeks of its briefing on Friday. The UN refugee agency warned that more than 65,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Yemen face worsening conditions as services are disrupted and food and fuel prices rise, and about 4,200 people have fled Yemen by sea towards Djibouti and Somalia since September.
Yemen slid back into war in July after four years of relative calm, amid fallout from the wider Middle East conflict, and hostilities intensified in September with a Houthi offensive in the west. Saudi Arabia has carried out airstrikes against Houthi positions, while the Houthis have stepped up attacks inside Saudi territory. The strategic port city of Hodeidah has repeatedly come under attack since fighting escalated between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces, reigniting a civil war that has already displaced millions.
Sunday’s displacement warning came on the same day as a Saudi-led coalition operation in Yemen. The coalition said on Sunday morning that it carried out a precision operation against resources it said the Houthis use to sustain their war effort in Hodeidah and Dhamar provinces, after continued attacks on civilians and threats to shipping in the southern Red Sea. Houthi-affiliated media reported strikes on an oil company station in Bajil district in Hodeidah and on the Faculty of Medicine at Hodeidah University, illustrating how the fighting and its civilian consequences are unfolding in the same provinces from which families are fleeing.
What happens next will depend on whether the fighting eases enough for aid to reach the newly displaced, and whether the funding the IOM has requested arrives in time. The agency’s warning is that, without shelter, food, clean water and health care, the displacement of the past two months will deepen into a longer humanitarian emergency — on top of more than 5.2 million people already internally displaced across Yemen before this latest escalation. For now, the clearest fact is the scale of the flight itself: more than 300,000 people, in two months, from the west of a country already exhausted by years of war.
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