IOM says 85,818 people have fled fighting in Yemen and more than 2,000 have reached Djibouti
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Fighting between Houthi forces and Yemen’s government has displaced 85,818 people, the International Organization for Migration said Sunday, a rise of about 10,000 in a day.
More than 2,000 of them have crossed the sea to Djibouti, the UN migration agency said.
IOM had put the number displaced since July at 76,000 a day earlier.
IOM had reported about 46,000 displaced earlier in the week. The count has roughly doubled since.
More than 82,000 of the current total were forced from their homes since the start of September, the agency said.
The Houthis launched an offensive against Saudi-backed government forces at the beginning of the month.
The Houthis have controlled large parts of northern Yemen for years, AFP noted.
The displacement has been concentrated across the west coast and Taiz, according to IOM.
Taiz province is the hardest hit. Some 9,280 households, nearly 56,000 people, have left districts there, the agency said.
Entire villages have emptied in Maqbanah, Jabal Habashi and al-Maafer, Al Jazeera reported.
IOM described Yemen in its statement as the Arab world’s poorest country.
IOM compiles the totals through its Displacement Tracking Matrix, its own field monitoring system in Yemen. The figures are the agency’s own estimates and no independent count has been published.
The agency warned that more people are expected to flee as the fighting intensifies.
The first arrivals in Djibouti landed on Thursday evening, IOM told Agence France-Presse.
Djibouti’s economy and finance minister, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, said on Saturday that 1,400 Yemenis had come ashore in the previous 24 hours.
That figure had passed 2,000 by Sunday, according to IOM.
Dawaleh said on Friday that 500 refugees reached the coastal city of Obock, among them women and children.
They were rescued at sea after their boats ran out of fuel while crossing the Bab al-Mandeb strait, he said.
Many of those arriving are women and young children, IOM said. They have been taken to a site in Obock where they are receiving assistance.
“Vulnerable groups such as women and children have reached the shores of Obock, with more expected in the coming days,” said Safiya Ibrahim, the agency’s humanitarian response coordinator.
“Behind every number is a family who’s lost everything,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said in a statement.
“Many have been displaced multiple times. People are crossing the sea with nothing because they have no other choice left,” Pope said.
She called Yemen a country torn by poverty and conflict that cannot carry the crisis alone. She asked donors to increase support for arrivals in Djibouti and for host communities in Obock.
Obock sits about 20 kilometres across the water from the Yemeni coast.
It has served for years as a landing point for people leaving Yemen by boat.
Traffic runs the other way as well. Migrants from the Horn of Africa cross the strait to transit Yemen on their way to Gulf states.
Djibouti hosts tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers. UN refugee agency figures from March 2026 recorded more than 36,000 registered, most of them Somali, Ethiopian and Yemeni.
The exodus followed the Houthi capture of the Red Sea port of Mocha on Thursday.
The group took the island of Mayyun, also known as Perim, the following day, Al Jazeera reported.
The week-long offensive gave the Houthis the remainder of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and several islands, AFP reported.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government describes the advance as an offensive directed from outside the country. The Houthi leadership casts its operations as a response to what it calls aggression against Yemen.
Government forces say they have struck Houthi vehicles and positions on the west coast from the air. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of the results those forces reported.
Bab al-Mandeb links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and carries shipping bound for the Suez Canal.
The strait became an important route for Saudi oil exports after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the war in the region, AFP reported.
The new displacement adds to one of the world’s largest existing caseloads.
More than 22 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
OCHA’s March 2026 response plan recorded 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure.
It put the number of children under five with acute malnutrition at more than 2.2 million, of whom 516,157 were severely malnourished.
The plan counted 5.2 million people already displaced inside the country before the latest fighting, and sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of those in need.
IOM runs transit centres in Obock for migrants returning from Gulf states.
Mocha’s port suspended operations after earlier attacks, leaving dock workers and traders without income, Al Jazeera reported in August.
Saudi Arabia announced the start of a Red Sea defence alliance the same month, according to Al Jazeera.
The strait is about 30 kilometres wide at its narrowest point.
AFP filed the IOM statement from Geneva.
Maqbanah, Jabal Habashi and al-Maafer are districts of Taiz province.
The Obock transit centres were built for migrants moving in the opposite direction, from the Horn of Africa toward the Gulf.
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