IOM says at least 76,000 people have fled fighting in Yemen since July
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — At least 76,000 people have fled their homes in Yemen since July, the International Organization for Migration said, as fighting spread across the southwest.
The figure was up from 46,000 that the UN migration agency reported a day earlier. IOM said the count was “alarmingly rising by the hour.”
The displacement covers the West Coast and Taiz governorates, according to the agency.
Taiz has absorbed the heaviest movement. IOM put the number there at about 8,300 households, or close to 50,000 people, displaced from districts across the province.
Entire villages have emptied in three Taiz districts — Maqbanah, Jabal Habashi and Al Ma’afer — as fighting moved closer to populated areas, the agency said.
Large numbers of people were reportedly seen leaving Mokha overnight carrying their possessions, IOM said, after Houthi fighters took control of the Red Sea port city earlier in the week, according to the UN account.
The Security Council met on Thursday to discuss that seizure and reported Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.
The road linking Mokha to Taiz has been cut off, according to the agency. It described the route as a main supply line.
Eight UN vehicles were seized from an aid hub at the captured port, according to the UN account of last week’s fighting.
New arrivals have been reported in Lahj and Aden. IOM also recorded people moving north toward Ibb.
“Families are being forced to flee for the second or third time since the start of this conflict, with almost nothing left,” said Amy Pope, the IOM director general.
“As fighting spreads, reaching people with lifesaving assistance is becoming harder,” she said.
The account of the displacement rests on IOM’s own field monitoring in the affected governorates. No independent count of those displaced has been published, and Yemen Herald could not verify the totals separately.
The tally comes from the agency’s Displacement Tracking Matrix, which logs movements reported by field teams across the governorates.
IOM said its most urgent requirements are shelter, food, water, household items, health care and protection support. Emergency stocks were already depleted by recent flood relief operations, the agency said.
It called on all parties to guarantee safe and sustained humanitarian access, and to protect aid workers, premises and assets nationwide. It also asked that communication and transport routes needed for aid delivery be restored.
Civilian casualties have accompanied the fighting. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Thursday that at least 14 civilians, including two children, had been killed or wounded since the start of September.
The World Health Organization recorded 67 deaths and 288 injuries between Aug. 6 and Aug. 24 across seven governorates. It listed Marib and Hadramout in the east, Al-Hodeidah in the west, Taiz in the southwest, and Shabwah, Al-Dhale’a and Lahj in the south.
Hospitals in Marib, Hadramaut and Taiz are handling an influx of trauma patients, according to WHO. The agency said emergency, surgical and intensive care units were already stretched.
Only 60 percent of health facilities in Yemen are fully operational, WHO said.
At Marib General Hospital, maternity and obstetrics services have been suspended temporarily to free resources for treating the wounded, the agency said. It reported that the number of deaths there had exceeded the hospital morgue’s capacity.
The clashes that began last week have left hundreds dead on both sides, mainly combatants, according to media reports cited by the United Nations.
Pro-government forces withdrew on Friday from an island base in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to reports cited by the UN. Houthi fighters have said they will continue targeting Saudi shipping in the waterway.
Yemen returned to war in July after a period of relative calm, drawn into the regional conflict that began in late February with the US-Israeli offensive against Iran.
The Houthis announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia in July. The UN dates the current wave of displacement from that month.
The Houthis and the internationally recognised government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, have been locked in a power struggle since 2014.
The displacement adds to needs that were already among the largest in the world. The UN humanitarian response plan published in March put the number of people requiring assistance at more than 22 million.
That plan recorded 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure. It counted more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, including 516,157 with severe acute malnutrition.
The same document put the number of internally displaced people at 5.2 million before the current escalation. It sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people over the year.
IOM earlier reported that 18,500 people were displaced in 72 hours as fighting flared across the west coast in early September.
A separate agency report released on Sept. 8 logged 5,063 families, or 30,378 individuals, displaced at least once between Jan. 1 and Sept. 5. Taiz recorded the highest cumulative figure in that count, with 3,032 displaced households.
Marib followed Taiz in that report, with 1,036 displaced households.
Aid agencies have said access constraints are the main obstacle to reaching the newly displaced. IOM said teams were distributing shelter materials and hygiene kits where roads remained open.
The agency did not give a figure for how many of the 76,000 had received assistance.
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