UN foresees 230,000 displaced in Yemen and 10,000 refugees in Djibouti

On the 18th of this month, the UN indicated that over 130,000 people were displaced in Yemen and about 3,000 fled to Djibouti due to the resumption of fighting in early September between the pro-Iranian Huthis rebels and the pro-governmental forces.

Today, he admits that these figures could increase respectively to 230,000 and 10,000 in the coming months, announced Babar Baloch, spokesman for UNHCR, during a press conference in Geneva.

The Huthis managed to take control of the Red Sea coast about a week and a half ago, strengthening their control over the narrow strategic of Bab el-Mandeb, which links Europe to Asia, through this sea and the Suez Canal.

But the fighting of recent weeks against government forces has provoked hundreds of dead and many displaced inside Yemen, with others heading for Djibouti on the other side of the Red Sea.

To date, the teams of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) “refused more than 112,000 displaced persons” within the country, announced to the press in Geneva, from Aden, Abdusattor Esoev, head of the organisation’s mission in Yemen, but stressed that the number could increase.

“Most were displaced in the last two weeks, mainly along the western coast and in the provinces of Taiz and Lahj,” he added.

In addition, about 3,000 people have already arrived in Djibouti in less than a week, “after making the dangerous sea crossing of the strait,” he told the press from the Djibouti Sandrine Desamours, local representative of UNHCR.

These arrivals “of Yemeni refugees increase the pressure on a response device already subject to strong demands,” he stressed, at a time when the country is hosting 36,000 refugees, mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia.

“ Although this number may seem modest, it is necessary to take account of the proportion it represents to the population” of about one million Djibutians, he argued.

According to Sandrine Desamours, Somali and Somali authorities in Puntland “also noted an increase in arrivals from Yemen, including both Yemeni and Somali refugees returning to their country”.

But for now, these flows “are counted by the hundreds,” he said.

After years of calming down, Yemen was dragged in July into the regional conflict triggered by the US and Israeli offensive against Iran in late February.

Between 2014 and 2022, a war opposed the Huthis to the pro-governmental forces, supported by Riyadh, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and immersing Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, in a serious humanitarian crisis.