IOM records 50 Yemeni families displaced in first week of August, most arriving in Marib
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — The International Organization for Migration recorded 50 Yemeni families displaced in the first week of August, most of them arriving in Marib.
That is 300 people, the agency said in its Displacement Tracking Matrix update covering Aug. 2 to Aug. 8.
The account rests on IOM’s own published weekly summaries. No independent count of the same period has been published.
Marib took 20 of the 50 families. They arrived mainly from Ibb and Sanaa, both under Houthi control, according to the agency.
Taiz recorded 14 families. Lahj took eight, Shabwa seven and Hodeidah one.
IOM described the week as a 28 percent fall from the seven days before it, which it put at 69 families, or 414 people.
An earlier summary from the same agency gives a different figure for that period. The update covering July 26 to Aug. 1 recorded 41 families, or 246 people, and described that as a 37 percent drop from a preceding week of 65 families.
IOM did not explain the gap between the two counts.
Safety and security was the reason families cited most often in the week to Aug. 8, the agency said.
It also logged displacement driven by natural disasters, by economic pressure tied to the conflict and, in one case, by a health need.
The published summary for the week to Aug. 8 put security concerns at 54 percent of new displacement, natural disasters at 35 percent and economic hardship at 24 percent.
Those shares total more than 100. The summary did not say whether families were able to give more than one reason for moving.
The agency linked the movement into Marib to rising tensions there, and named Houthi attacks on the governorate.
It estimated that 60 families left existing displacement sites during the week in search of safer ground.
Since Jan. 1 the tracking matrix has counted 1,742 families who fled their homes at least once. That is 10,452 people.
Marib accounts for 53 percent of that caseload, at 926 families.
Taiz follows with 348 families and Hodeidah with 209. Hadramout recorded 125, Lahj 46, Al-Dhalea 33, Shabwa 22, Al-Jawf 18, Aden 12 and Al-Mahra four.
Taiz has ranked second to Marib in the annual tally through both the July and the August reporting periods.
The cumulative total stood at 1,664 families, or 9,984 people, at the start of August.
The year’s totals have climbed steadily. IOM counted 1,458 families, or 8,748 people, displaced at least once between Jan. 1 and July 18.
Marib held 57.1 percent of that caseload in mid-July, at 832 families. Taiz stood at 218, Hudaydah at 186 and Hadramawt at 125.
Marib’s share of the annual total has since fallen to 53 percent even as its family count rose by 94.
In the week of July 12 to 18 the agency recorded 42 families, or 252 people, and called that a 58 percent fall from the week before.
Hudaydah led that week with 25 families, ahead of Taiz with seven and Marib with six. Aden recorded three and Al-Dhalea one.
Security concerns drove 81 percent of that week’s cases, IOM said. Natural disasters accounted for 17 percent and economic hardship for 2 percent.
The agency also identified 58 displaced families that had not appeared in the previous week’s tally, and folded them into the running total.
The pattern in the last week of July was different. Najran accounted for the largest share of new cases with 23 families, all of them displaced within the governorate, IOM said.
Marib took 12 families that week, arriving from Taiz and Al-Jawf. Hudaydah registered four and Lahj two.
Of those 41 families, 27 moved for safety and security reasons, the agency said. Eleven cited natural disasters and three cited economic pressure.
IOM issued that update on Aug. 3.
Marib city has come under repeated attack this month.
Marib’s government media office said six ballistic missiles and four drones hit residential districts of the city on Aug. 15, wounding four people and damaging homes, Al Jazeera reported.
Missile and drone strikes on the Red Sea port of al-Makha killed at least seven people on Aug. 10, the broadcaster reported. Four were military personnel and three were civilians.
The Houthis said the al-Makha operation used ballistic missiles and drones and was a response to what they called a continued Saudi military buildup.
Attacks on military camps in Marib and Hadramout in early August killed at least 30 government soldiers, Al Jazeera reported.
Weekly displacement sits inside a far larger caseload. The United Nations humanitarian response plan published in March records more than 22 million people in need across Yemen.
It counts 18.3 million who are acutely food insecure, and more than 2.2 million children under five who are acutely malnourished. Of those children, 516,157 are severely malnourished.
The plan counts 5.2 million internally displaced people in Yemen and seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of them.
A United Nations-brokered truce took effect in April 2022 and lapsed that October. No formal ceasefire has replaced it.
Marib has absorbed displaced Yemenis throughout the war, and the governorate has led the weekly tracking figures for most of this year.
Al-Mahra, on the border with Oman, recorded the smallest share of new displacement so far in 2026, at four families.
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