Executive Unit says 2,183 families displaced in Taiz and Hodeidah by early September
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — A Yemeni government body said it had registered 2,183 families displaced in Taiz and Hodeidah governorates by 5 September, the state news agency Saba reported.
The Executive Unit for IDP Camps Management attributed the movement to the escalation by Houthi forces on the western fronts.
It recorded 1,643 families, or 8,896 people, displaced in Taiz, the unit said.
In Hodeidah it counted 540 families, of whom 394 settled in Hays district and 146 in Khokha, according to the figures carried by Saba.
The unit said the families urgently need shelter, food, water and sanitation, household items, cash assistance, healthcare, protection and psychological support.
It called on the United Nations, international and local organisations, donors and humanitarian partners to provide assistance and strengthen the response in displacement and reception areas.
The figures rest on the Executive Unit’s own registration data, relayed by Saba, which is run by the internationally recognised government. No independent verification of the unit’s totals has been published, and Yemen Herald could not confirm them separately.
United Nations agencies have reported displacement on a similar scale over the same period. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said nearly 1,800 families fled in less than 48 hours and that several displacement camps in Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi emptied under shelling.
OCHA said emergency stocks were severely depleted.
The International Organization for Migration reported 227 families leaving three displacement sites in western Taiz on 4 September, Saba said, and 274 families displaced across five governorates over a week.
The Houthi movement disputes the government’s account of the fighting. It says its operations target military positions and denies deliberately shelling civilian areas.
Houthi forces launched simultaneous ground assaults in southern Hodeidah and in three districts west of Taiz on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera and Arab News, which described the attack as the largest since the UN-brokered truce of April 2022.
The National reported that government forces counted 14 ballistic missiles fired at rural areas of the two governorates. Fighting was reported in Maqbanah, al-Kadha, al-Tuwair and Ghabari.
Government troops recaptured a hilltop in Jabal Habashi the following day, Arab News reported. Al Jazeera reported that Houthi units have been pressing to cut off the government-held port of Mokha and to move towards ground bordering the Bab al-Mandab strait.
At least four civilians were killed and nine wounded in a missile strike on the Heijah al-Abd road south of Taiz on Saturday, Al Jazeera and The National reported. Both outlets attributed the attack to Houthi forces.
Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, called the escalation extremely alarming and warned that it risked widening the conflict, his office said. He urged the parties to halt hostilities and to use the Military Coordination Committee.
Hays and Khokha lie on the southern Hodeidah coast in government-held territory. Both have absorbed displaced families in earlier rounds of fighting along the Red Sea coast.
Taiz has been divided since 2015, with the city partly encircled and its western countryside contested. Maqbanah, Mawzaa and Jabal Habashi districts have changed hands repeatedly.
Displacement in Yemen is largely internal and often repeated. Families who move ahead of a front line frequently move again when it shifts.
The Executive Unit is the government body responsible for registering displaced people and coordinating camp management with humanitarian agencies.
Its counts are used by aid organisations alongside the displacement tracking data collected by the International Organization for Migration.
Camps in the area were already occupied before the latest fighting. Sites in Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi had housed families displaced from earlier rounds of the war.
Aid access depends on the front line. Routes between Taiz city and the western districts have been cut for long stretches since 2015, and convoys need clearance from both sides.
The rainy season adds to the difficulty. Flash flooding has damaged tents and washed out tracks in Hodeidah and Taiz in recent years.
Marib, in the east, remains the largest single displacement site in the country, with camps ringing the city. Local authorities there say the governorate hosts a large share of Yemen’s displaced.
Executive Unit figures count families as well as individuals, and the two measures do not always move together because household sizes vary between governorates.
The Taiz figures imply an average household of about five and a half people. The unit did not give a corresponding individual count for Hodeidah.
The United Nations humanitarian plan for 2026 records 5.2 million people displaced inside Yemen. It counts more than 22 million people needing assistance, of whom 18.3 million are acutely food insecure.
The same plan lists more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, including 516,157 severe cases, and seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.
Funding has lagged behind that target. Saba reported on 4 September that the appeal stood at 18 per cent funded when the European Union announced 3 million euros for the UN Population Fund.
Shelter and household items are usually the first requirement in a new displacement, followed by water and sanitation at reception sites.
Saba did not say how many of the registered families had reached formal camps.
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