Aden meeting agrees to unify Yemen’s displacement figures as IOM counts 145,308 displaced
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — A government coordination meeting in Aden on Monday reviewed the humanitarian response to Yemen’s latest displacement wave and agreed to work toward a single set of displacement figures.
Deputy Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nizar Basuhyab chaired the meeting.
It brought together government agencies, United Nations bodies, international organisations and other humanitarian partners, according to the state news agency Saba, which reported the meeting the same day.
Saba named no participant other than Basuhyab.
The stated purpose was to improve coordination among those bodies as the number of displaced families rises.
Participants treated the unification of displacement figures and of data on humanitarian interventions as the immediate priority, Saba said.
Better data would improve needs assessment, targeting and aid delivery, according to the agency’s account.
Participants reviewed what Saba described as a continued influx of displaced families into several governorates.
They also discussed mechanisms to address mounting needs in host communities, which absorb arrivals into existing housing, schools and water systems.
The meeting discussed developing a unified plan to respond to displacement waves and updating data on displaced families at regular intervals, Saba said.
It reviewed humanitarian work carried out by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs during August and September.
That review covered the types of assistance provided, the areas and beneficiaries targeted, and the gaps, challenges and priority needs identified, according to the agency.
Participants called for coordinated UN and international efforts on food and shelter assistance and for faster emergency support.
Saba gave no figures for the displacement the meeting was convened to address, and set out no timeline for the unified plan.
The account of the meeting rests on Saba, which is run by the internationally recognised government. No independent report of the meeting has been published, and Yemen Herald could not confirm its proceedings separately.
Figures published independently the same day set out the scale of the caseload.
The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that 145,308 people, or 24,218 households, had been displaced across eight governorates since fighting escalated in June.
That was a rise of 15,870 people, or more than 12 per cent, in the week to 29 September, the agency said.
Taiz has absorbed 81,444 of those displaced, more than half the national total, according to IOM.
Lahj has received 34,860 and Aden 12,456.
“Every week, we count thousands more people who have left everything behind,” said Abdusattor Esoev, IOM chief of mission in Yemen.
The count has climbed through the month. IOM put the total past 76,000 in the second week of September and past 104,000 by the middle of the month.
The June escalation added to a displaced population that predates it by years.
OCHA counted 5.2 million internally displaced people in Yemen in its Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for 2026, published on 29 March.
That plan put the number of people in need across the country at more than 22 million, including 10.95 million women and girls.
It recorded 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure.
More than 2.2 million children under five were acutely malnourished, of whom 516,157 had severe acute malnutrition, according to the plan.
Aid agencies appealed for 2.16 billion dollars for the year under the plan.
They aimed to reach 12 million people, including 9.4 million prioritised for targeted assistance on the basis of need severity.
Donor funding has lagged the appeal. OCHA said in mid-May that contributions received amounted to about 13 per cent of the plan’s requirements.
Schools are among the services under pressure in the areas receiving arrivals.
UNICEF said on 25 September that 243 schools had closed or suspended classes over the previous three weeks, affecting nearly 140,000 students.
The agency said about 71,000 children were among roughly 130,000 people displaced in that period.
UNICEF screened nearly 2,900 children during those weeks and found more than a quarter acutely malnourished, with 200 cases classed as severe, according to the agency.
“Conflict drives hunger, and hunger makes children more vulnerable to conflict,” said Akhil Iyer, UNICEF’s country representative in Yemen.
UNICEF put the number of children affected by the renewed hostilities at more than 12 million.
IOM has set out what it delivered earlier in the escalation. At 17 September, when it counted 104,796 displaced people in 17,461 households, it had registered 1,159 households for cash or in-kind aid.
It had provided shelter assistance to 449 households and non-food items to 460, and delivered protection services to 758 people in Marib, Aden and Lahj, the agency said.
It had also pre-positioned 8,000 emergency water and sanitation kits.
Taiz accounted for more than 63,000 of the displaced at that point, including 21,018 in Jabal Habashi, 12,642 in al-Ma’afer and 8,250 in al-Shamayatayn.
IOM Director General Amy Pope said then that ignoring the suffering of civilians was unacceptable as needs continued to rise.
Displacement in Yemen is tracked by IOM through its displacement tracking matrix. Government ministries maintain their own registers, and humanitarian clusters record beneficiaries separately.
Figures from those systems do not always agree, which is the divergence the Aden meeting said it wanted to close.
Basuhyab’s ministry handles the government’s dealings with donors and international organisations.
Neither Saba nor the ministry said when the coordination group would meet again.
About the Author
