Aden governor asks UNFPA for more support as city counts 46,675 displaced people
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Aden’s governor asked the United Nations Population Fund for wider humanitarian support, as local authorities put the number of displaced people in the city at 46,675.
Abdulrahman Sheikh, who serves as minister of state and governor of Aden, met Francesco Galtieri, the UNFPA representative in Yemen. Saba, the state news agency, reported the meeting on Sunday.
The agency said the two discussed humanitarian cooperation, support for displaced people and host communities, and youth training programmes in the city.
Saba described the displacement figure as official statistics current to Saturday. It attributed the count to the local authority.
The displaced had arrived from Taiz, Hudaydah and areas of Yemen’s western coast, the agency said.
It said the arrivals were adding pressure to basic services in Aden.
Yemen Herald could not independently confirm the account. It rests on Saba’s report, and no second origin for the meeting has been published.
Galtieri took up the UNFPA post in Yemen on 17 November 2025, according to the fund’s country office.
Saba said the talks covered UNFPA work in protection, health care, social services and livelihood support.
The two sides discussed expanding training and capacity-building for displaced people and the communities hosting them, the agency said.
Sheikh called for stronger support from the United Nations and international partners for the humanitarian response and for the protection of civilians, according to Saba.
He said local authorities were working to maintain security and stability and to improve public services, the agency reported.
Saba said both sides stressed coordinating their work and directing assistance according to need.
No funding figures were announced. The agency listed no commitments from either side.
UNFPA is the United Nations agency for sexual and reproductive health.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said almost 260,000 people had been displaced inside Yemen since August.
About half of them had taken refuge in Taiz, where the fighting is concentrated, the office said. Al Jazeera reported those figures on 22 October.
An earlier United Nations count put the total above 250,000.
The International Organization for Migration said displacement had passed 200,000 before that. It said at the time that needs were rising and that funding was drying up.
Aid agencies had reached more than 174,000 displaced people since August, according to OCHA. The office put that at nearly six in 10 displaced households.
Those families received food, hygiene kits and emergency cash in the first days after they fled, it said.
OCHA said shelter was the most pressing need for newly displaced families, followed by food and cash.
The UN Human Rights Office verified 251 civilian casualties over the same period, according to OCHA. It recorded 57 people killed and 194 injured.
Half of those killed were children, the office said.
Al Jazeera reported intense clashes in the Jabal Han highlands of western Taiz, and heavy fighting in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts.
Al-Monitor reported in October that the Houthis had tightened their siege of Taiz. The Houthis dispute government accounts of conditions in the governorate.
Yemen’s defence ministry warned civilians in Houthi-held areas last week to avoid Houthi rallies and what it called cultural courses, saying it would treat them as military targets.
Rashad al-Alimi, who chairs the Presidential Leadership Council, condemned Houthi strikes on the Aden and al-Rayyan airports last week. He called for the group to be designated a terrorist organisation.
Saba reported separately this month that Yemen’s transport ministry condemned the firing of two ballistic missiles at Aden airport.
Government forces said they had carried out 835 targeting operations against the Houthis, their spokesman Majid al-Nazili said last week.
He said those operations killed or injured 285 Houthi members and destroyed tanks and weapons stores. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of that tally.
A government military source said air raids had hit Houthi gatherings and infrastructure in the Maafar directorate, south of Taiz.
The United States ordered non-essential embassy staff and family members in Riyadh to leave last week.
Government forces launched a counteroffensive named Dawn of Yemen earlier this month, with Saudi-led coalition support.
A truce brokered by the United Nations in 2022 collapsed in July, when the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi ports.
Yemen’s Ministry of Education says more than 2.5 million children are out of school because of the conflict.
The United Nations humanitarian needs and response plan for Yemen, published in March, recorded more than 22 million people in need of assistance.
The same plan counted 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure.
It recorded more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, and listed 516,157 of them as severely malnourished.
The plan put the number of internally displaced people in Yemen at 5.2 million. It sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of those in need.
Hudaydah, the second governorate Saba named, lies on the Red Sea coast and is held by the Houthis.
Aden is the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government. The Houthis have held Sanaa since 2014.
Sheikh holds the governorship alongside a cabinet post as minister of state.
Saba published its account of the meeting in the early hours of Sunday.
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