IOM Tracks 4,878 Yemenis Displaced in the First Quarter of 2026
Yemen Herald News 
The International Organization for Migration has recorded a fresh wave of internal displacement across Yemen during the opening months of 2026, underscoring how more than a decade of war continues to uproot families who have often already fled their homes more than once. According to the agency’s Displacement Tracking Matrix, at least 4,878 people were forced to move during the first quarter of the year, a figure that reflects both the persistence of the conflict and the deepening economic and environmental pressures weighing on the country’s most vulnerable communities.
Between 1 January and 28 March 2026, the organisation tracked 813 families, amounting to 4,878 individuals, who were displaced at least once because of Yemen’s deteriorating conditions. The pattern is a grimly familiar one: households abandon their homes with little more than what they can carry, often moving repeatedly as front lines shift and local economies collapse. For many Yemenis, displacement is not a single traumatic event but a recurring feature of daily life, forcing them to rebuild fragile routines again and again in unfamiliar and frequently overcrowded surroundings.
The latest tracking data show that the displacement was not spread evenly across the country. Marib governorate absorbed the largest share of newly displaced families, accounting for more than half of all recorded cases, while Hadramout and Taiz also received significant numbers. Smaller movements were logged in Hodeidah, Al-Jawf and Al-Dhalea, with additional cases recorded in Shabwa, Al-Mahra and Lahj. The concentration of arrivals in Marib, a governorate that has repeatedly served as a refuge for those escaping fighting elsewhere, highlights the mounting strain on host communities and on the services expected to support them.
The data also point to displacement occurring within governorates, not only between them. In some areas, families who had already sought safety in urban centres were uprooted a second time, a dynamic that makes humanitarian planning especially difficult. Aid agencies must track populations that are almost always on the move and adjust the distribution of food, water and shelter to match rapidly changing needs on the ground, a task complicated by insecurity and limited access to some districts.
IOM attributes the movements to a combination of overlapping factors rather than any single trigger. Security fears linked to the ongoing conflict remain a primary driver, as families flee active hostilities and the threat of renewed violence. Worsening economic conditions play an equally decisive role: widespread unemployment, a weakening currency and rising prices have made it increasingly difficult for households to meet even their most basic needs. Layered on top of these pressures are the growing impacts of climate change, including erratic rainfall and flooding, which deepen food insecurity and place further stress on already scarce resources.
The new figures sit within a humanitarian emergency that ranks among the most severe in the world. United Nations agencies have estimated that a large majority of Yemen’s population requires some form of assistance, the cumulative result of the war that began in 2015. Aid organisations have repeatedly warned that funding shortfalls are forcing them to scale back food, water and shelter programmes at precisely the moment when needs are rising, leaving displaced families with fewer safety nets to fall back on.
Displacement also compounds long-standing public health risks. Overcrowded shelters and damaged water and sanitation systems have contributed to recurring outbreaks of cholera and measles, illnesses that spread quickly among populations with limited access to clean water and medical care. Malnutrition, particularly among young children, remains widespread, and the disruption of routine health services has made it harder to contain preventable diseases. For newly displaced families, these conditions can turn an already precarious situation into a life-threatening one.
Yemen’s crisis is inseparable from the wider political and military landscape. The war has drawn in an array of domestic and regional actors since the Houthi movement seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2015 and a Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year. The country has since fractured into competing zones of control, its currency and public institutions battered, and successive rounds of diplomacy have failed to produce a durable settlement. Each flare-up along the shifting front lines threatens to generate new displacement, keeping the total number of uprooted people stubbornly high.
For the humanitarian community, the quarterly figures serve as both a snapshot and a warning. They capture only those movements that trackers were able to verify, meaning the true scale of displacement is likely higher, and they signal where pressure on shelter, water and food is most acute. Governorates such as Marib, already stretched by years of absorbing the displaced, face the prospect of still more arrivals if fighting intensifies or economic conditions worsen further.
Aid officials stress that reversing these trends will require more than emergency relief. A sustainable reduction in displacement depends on a broader political solution, the stabilisation of the economy and investment in basic services that would give families a reason and the means to return home. Until such conditions materialise, the Displacement Tracking Matrix is likely to keep documenting fresh waves of movement, each one representing thousands of Yemenis compelled once again to leave whatever fragile stability they had managed to build.
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