Technical education minister al-Mahri and IOM’s Abdusattor Esoev discuss vocational training
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s technical education minister and the head of the International Organization for Migration in the country discussed vocational training projects at a meeting in Aden on Monday.
Anwar al-Mahri, minister of technical education and vocational training, met IOM chief of mission Abdusattor Esoev, the state news agency Saba reported.
The account rests on Saba, which is run by Yemen’s internationally recognised government. IOM has not published its own account of the meeting, and no independent confirmation has appeared.
Deputy Minister Adel al-Tuhaish and the head of IOM’s Aden office, Muhannad al-Rubaie, also attended, according to the agency.
The two sides reviewed projects IOM runs in Yemen and looked at widening cooperation, Saba said.
They discussed improving technical and vocational skills in line with labour market needs, according to the agency.
Al-Mahri said the partnership with IOM should be strengthened, Saba reported. The agency did not say whether any new programme or funding was agreed.
Esoev has led IOM’s Yemen mission since October 2024. He is from Tajikistan.
He previously ran IOM’s mission in Bangladesh, the organisation’s largest in the Asia-Pacific region, which supported more than a million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar.
Between 2018 and 2022 he was IOM chief of mission in the Russian Federation.
IOM runs migration, shelter, water and health programmes in Yemen alongside its displacement tracking work.
Yemen is also a transit route for migrants travelling from the Horn of Africa toward Saudi Arabia. IOM registers arrivals on the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden coasts and runs voluntary return programmes.
Its displacement tracking matrix is the main source of population movement data used by aid agencies working in the country.
That tracking has dominated its output this month.
The agency counted 18,500 people displaced in Taiz and Hodeidah governorates in the 72 hours after hostilities escalated on Sept. 3.
The figure reached about 46,000 by Sept. 11 and 76,000 the next day. By Sept. 15 it stood at 93,864.
By Sept. 16, IOM put the total at 104,796 people, across 17,461 households.
Taiz was worst affected, with about 8,300 households displaced, close to 50,000 people, the agency said.
A further 2,776 people had crossed from Yemen into Djibouti by that date. Fighting along the west coast has shown no sign of easing.
The displacement followed a Houthi offensive launched on Sept. 3.
Fighters took the Red Sea port of Mocha on Sept. 10, Euronews reported. Within days the group held the rest of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline and the island of Mayyun, also called Perim, according to Al Jazeera and the Times of Israel.
Houthi units also moved onto the Hanish Islands, the Times of Israel said. The group’s forces now sit about 20 kilometres from the African shore, Al Jazeera reported.
The UN Security Council met on the advance on Sept. 15. An assistant secretary-general told members the push toward the Bab al-Mandab strait raised the risk of a wider conflict.
The Houthis widened their attacks on Saudi Arabia over the same period, claiming missile and drone attacks on Riyadh and on an Aramco facility in Yanbu on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia confirmed the group had tried to hit the capital with a ballistic missile, NBC News reported. Security Council members condemned the attacks in a joint statement.
The UN refugee agency allocated $2 million in emergency funding for Yemen on Sept. 21 and said it was preparing a shipment of shelter aid.
UNHCR said its Yemen operation is 18 percent funded for 2026 and that it needs $25 million to reach about 231,000 people. Its Djibouti operation is 15 percent funded.
More than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance this year, according to the UN humanitarian office’s response plan published in March. It puts the number of acutely food insecure at 18.3 million.
The plan counts more than 2.2 million acutely malnourished children under five, including 516,157 severe cases, and 5.2 million internally displaced people. It seeks $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.
Technical and vocational education in Yemen has been disrupted by a decade of war.
About 3.2 million children in the country are out of school, UNICEF says. It has warned that the number facing disruption to their learning could rise to 6 million.
Around 193,000 teachers have gone without regular pay since 2016, according to UNICEF. The agency says the shortfall has pushed teachers out of the profession.
Vocational institutes draw many of their students from that age group. Ministries in Aden have sought donor support to keep the sector running.
Yemen’s war began in 2014, when the Houthis took Sanaa. It widened in March 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition intervened on the government’s side.
Aden has served as the seat of the internationally recognised government since 2015. Several ministries and the central bank operate from the city.
Al-Rubaie’s Aden office covers governorates held by the internationally recognised government.
IOM’s director general has said the agency’s Yemen programmes are stretched by a decade of war and repeated funding shortfalls.
The United Nations Development Programme runs a separate vocational and business skills training project in Yemen, now in its second phase.
IOM training in Yemen has covered carpentry, welding and electrical work, reaching more than 350 displaced people, according to a report .
Saba did not say how long Monday’s meeting lasted or name the projects discussed.
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