UNHCR says nearly 100,000 more Yemenis could be displaced within three months

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GENEVA, Switzerland — The UN refugee agency said Tuesday that nearly 100,000 more Yemenis could be forced from their homes over the next three months as fighting spreads.

More than 130,000 people have been displaced since the start of September, UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch told a press briefing in Geneva.

Baloch said the total inside Yemen could pass 230,000 if the fighting continues at its present pace.

Most of those uprooted have stayed in the country. Several thousand have not.

More than 3,000 people have crossed the Bab al-Mandab Strait to Djibouti, according to UNHCR. Hundreds of others have reached Somaliland and Puntland.

More than 2,400 of them made the crossing in the four days to 15 September, the agency said at the time.

Baloch said the agency and its partners were planning for more than 10,000 arrivals in Djibouti.

He said departures by boat were expected to rise after mid-October, when sea conditions in the strait usually improve.

Arrivals come ashore mainly at Obock, Khor Angar, Moulhoule and Godoria, UNHCR said. More than 60 percent are women, children or older people.

They are moved from the coast to Markazi refugee village near Obock, where Djibouti’s National Office for Assistance to Refugees and Disaster-Stricken People leads registration.

Markazi took in thousands of Yemenis during an earlier exodus a decade ago. UNHCR said it has room for about 5,000 more people.

Djiboutian authorities are preparing for more than twice that number.

Prime Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed travelled to Obock this month and instructed government agencies to care for the new arrivals.

Many of those coming ashore are children and adolescents. UNHCR said it was working with the government to place them in schools that are already crowded.

The agency said it was providing transport, temporary shelter, relief items, food, water, health care and protection services alongside Djiboutian authorities and partner organisations.

About 70 percent of the displaced inside Yemen are women and children, UNHCR said. Baloch said some families had described being uprooted for a fourth time.

The agency’s Yemen operation is 18 percent funded for 2026, or $33 million of a $193 million requirement.

It said about $31 million is needed immediately to assist 230,000 people over the next three months.

Separate figures from the International Organization for Migration put the displaced at 129,438 people, or 21,573 households, across seven governorates.

The IOM figures come from its Displacement Tracking Matrix, which counts displaced households at sites and in host communities.

IOM recorded 118,086 displaced on 18 September. Three days later the count had risen by 11,352.

Taiz governorate holds the largest share at 73,494 people, IOM said.

Lahj follows with 33,828, then Aden with 8,946 and Hodeidah with 8,244.

Abyan has recorded 3,324 new arrivals, Hadramawt 1,008 and Marib 594.

In Hodeidah, IOM counted 1,374 displaced households, most of them from the coastal districts of Hays and Al Khawkha.

IOM said urban centres and host communities across southern Taiz and the west coast were under pressure, naming Mokha, Hays, Mawza, Al Ma’afer and Jabal Habashi.

The agency asked donors for support to meet shelter, water and sanitation needs.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 21,000 households had been displaced nationwide since 1 August, most in Taiz and Lahj.

The displacement followed a Houthi advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast this month. IOM said people were seen leaving Mokha city carrying their belongings after the group took the port.

The government disputes the extent of the Houthi gains in Taiz and Lahj. Front lines in both governorates have moved repeatedly, and neither side’s account of them has been independently established.

The UN figures do not break the displaced down by which side controls the areas they left.

The totals have climbed through the month. IOM recorded 18,500 people displaced in 72 hours in early September, 76,000 by 12 September and 85,818 by 13 September.

The agency put the count near 46,000 in the first days of the month and about 94,000 by 14 September.

Of that last figure, 82,164 had been displaced since 1 September, the agency said.

UN agencies reported more than 100,000 displaced on 15 September and more than 112,000 on 18 September.

Fuel shortages have complicated departures. Reuters reported that a lack of fuel in southern Yemen was limiting the number of boats able to make the crossing.

Baloch spoke as world leaders gathered in New York for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly.

Yemen’s displacement crisis predates this month’s fighting by years.

The UN counts 5.2 million people displaced inside the country, many of them more than once.

The Houthis have held the capital, Sanaa, since 2014. The internationally recognised government is based in Aden.

The humanitarian response plan published in March put the number of people in need at more than 22 million, and recorded 18.3 million as acutely food insecure.

More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely, according to the plan.

The appeal sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.

UNHCR said it was distributing cash, shelter materials and household items to families displaced inside Yemen.

It did not say how many of the newly displaced it had reached.