UNHCR says thousands crossed from Yemen to Djibouti in under a week

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OBOCK, Djibouti — Nearly 3,000 people have arrived in Djibouti from Yemen in less than a week, the UN refugee agency said, after crossing the Bab al-Mandab in small boats.

More than half of the recent arrivals are women and children, UNHCR said in a briefing note on 18 September.

They come ashore at four points on Djibouti’s northern coast. “Refugees continue to arrive by boat through Obock, Khor Angar, Moulhoule and Godoria after difficult journeys in small vessels,” said Sandrine Desamours, the agency’s representative in Djibouti.

The agency is preparing for at least 10,000 more.

Markazi refugee village, outside Obock, was built for 5,000 people. It already holds about 2,700 Yemenis and 1,500 Eritreans, according to UNHCR.

Arrivals were slower at first. UNHCR recorded about 500 people by 11 September, about 1,400 by 12 September and more than 2,000 by the evening of 13 September.

Al Jazeera, reporting from Djibouti on 15 September, put the number at 3,400. Yemen Herald could not reconcile that tally with the agency’s, and the two cover different periods.

The first groups travelled in small fishing boats, Desamours said. Later groups used larger commercial vessels and appeared better prepared.

Alexandre Coissac, the International Organization for Migration’s director in Djibouti, described “all kinds of sea vessels, from small dhows to larger ships.”

“The number of people arriving is large,” Coissac said. “We’ll not be able to manage.”

Djiboutian authorities are preparing for as many as 10,000 people if the pace holds, Al Jazeera reported.

Shelter, water, food and health care are all short at the arrival points, UNHCR said.

The health response has drawn 490,000 dollars from the World Health Organization’s Contingency Fund for Emergencies. Agencies say it remains underfunded.

Desamours said the new arrivals had fled bombardment, and that fuel shortages were preventing people from returning.

Those arriving are leaving districts in Taiz governorate, among them Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi, and areas along Yemen’s western coast.

Fighting resumed there in September between forces of the internationally recognised government and the Houthis, according to UN briefings.

About 112,000 people were displaced inside Yemen in two weeks across Aden, Hudaydah, Abyan and Taiz, UN agencies said in mid-September.

Al Jazeera reported more than 85,000 displaced in the first two weeks of the month. UNHCR later put the figure above 100,000, concentrated on the western coast.

Aid stocks inside Yemen are thin. “Our resources are very, very, very limited and our stocks will be depleted very soon,” said Abdusattor Esoev, the IOM’s chief of mission in Yemen.

Of more than 5,000 health service delivery units in Yemen, only 60 were fully functioning before the escalation, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

Shabia Mantoo, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, called for immediate de-escalation. “Preventing further loss of life must take precedence,” she said.

Alessandra Vellucci, who directs the UN Information Service in Geneva, said humanitarian delivery in Houthi-held areas had become untenable. She said 73 UN staff remained arbitrarily detained by the Houthi de facto authorities, some of them since 2021.

Francesco Galtieri, the UN Population Fund’s representative in Yemen, pointed to women-led households left as sole breadwinners.

Some of those now in Obock have made the crossing before. UNHCR said families who fled in 2015 and later returned to Yemen are among the current arrivals.

More than 15,700 Yemenis reached Djibouti after the conflict escalated in 2015, according to figures cited by Al Jazeera.

The strait separating the two shores narrows to about 30 kilometres.

Yemen’s humanitarian plan for 2026 counts more than 22 million people in need of assistance and 18.3 million who are acutely food insecure, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The plan seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.

Before the escalation, close to half of Yemen’s population of about 41 million needed aid, UN agencies said.

About 4.8 million Yemenis were already displaced by earlier years of the war, UN agencies said this month.

The movement across the strait followed a Houthi offensive on Yemen’s western coast. Houthi forces took the port of Mokha in the second week of September, according to wire reports and the International Crisis Group.

They took Dhubab the following day and reached Perim Island, in the mouth of the strait, before capturing the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands.

The defending side was an amalgam of government-aligned units — the National Resistance, the Giants Brigades, National Shield and Taiz axis forces — operating under separate commands, the Crisis Group said in a report on 18 September.

The group dated the start of the campaign to 20 July, when attacks were directed at Saudi territory and Red Sea shipping.

Nearly 50,000 civilians had left western Yemen by 12 September, The Guardian reported.

Saudi crude transits through Bab al-Mandab fell from more than 3.5 million barrels a day in early July to near zero in August, according to the Crisis Group.

Aden Omar Abdillahi of Djibouti’s Institute of Political and Strategic Studies told Al Jazeera the fighting could reach beyond the two countries. “If this conflict impacts maritime security, it will have a massive impact,” he said.

Markazi village was set up in 2015 to house Yemenis who left during the war’s first year.