Yemeni envoy in Budapest discusses displacement and medical needs with Hungary Helps
Yemen Herald News 
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Yemen’s chargé d’affaires in Hungary discussed displacement and medical supply needs with the head of the Hungary Helps programme department, the state news agency Saba reported.
Ahmed Naji met Élek Zsófia on Friday, according to a Saba report published on 2 October.
The two discussed what the agency described as the latest developments in Yemen’s humanitarian crisis and ways to support efforts to reduce its effects.
Naji attributed the crisis to military escalation by the Houthis, Saba said.
He said forced displacement had been recorded in several Yemeni governorates as residents moved to areas they considered safer.
The number of displaced people was still rising, he said, and host areas were under pressure as needs outpaced the resources available.
Naji handed the Hungarian official documents on displacement caused by the war, on what he described as Houthi violations against civilians, and on attacks on service and humanitarian facilities, the agency reported.
He also raised healthcare needs, including medicines and medical supplies.
Élek said her government condemned the military actions carried out by the Houthis and expressed regret at the humanitarian situation, according to Saba.
Those characterisations are the Yemeni government’s and Hungary’s. The Houthis reject the description of their operations as violations against civilians and say they are fighting a Saudi-backed government and its foreign supporters.
The account of the meeting rests on Saba, the state news agency of the internationally recognised government. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation that the meeting took place, or of what was said in it.
Hungary Helps is the Hungarian government’s humanitarian and development programme. It is administered by the Hungary Helps Agency and funds aid projects abroad, according to the programme’s own website.
Displacement inside Yemen rose through September. The Executive Unit for the Management of Displaced Persons Camps, a Yemeni government body, said 146,943 people in 21,583 families were displaced between 1 and 18 September.
Taiz governorate accounted for 80,792 of them across 15 districts, the unit said. It put displacement in Lahj at 38,304 people across nine districts, in Al Hudaydah at 10,297 and in Abyan at 8,946.
Aden recorded 7,162 people, according to the same count. Hadramout, Al Mahrah and Shabwa recorded smaller numbers, measured in families.
The unit called for urgent, life-saving assistance from international and local organisations. It warned that delays in the response would add to the pressure on host communities.
Its count covered 18 days and did not take in movement recorded later in the month.
The International Organization for Migration gave a separate figure. It said on 17 September that 104,796 people, in 17,461 households, had been displaced by the fighting.
IOM put displacement in Taiz above 63,000 and in Lahj at 26,400, with more than 3,500 in Aden and rising numbers in Abyan, Hadramout and Marib.
Amy Pope, the IOM director general, said ignoring the suffering of civilians was unacceptable as needs continued to rise.
The agency said displacement was moving faster than humanitarian workers could track it. It also recorded 2,776 people crossing from Yemen into Djibouti.
The United Nations humanitarian plan for Yemen, issued in March, counts more than 22 million people in need of assistance.
It records 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure and more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.
The plan counts 5.2 million people displaced inside the country. It seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of those in need.
Fighting around Taiz drew international comment in the days before the Budapest meeting was reported.
Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, said on 1 October that Ansar Allah’s military operations in the area posed grave risks to the civilian population. Ansar Allah is the Houthis’ formal name.
He said he had received accounts of deaths, destroyed infrastructure and blocked roads that restricted civilian movement, and repeated a call on Ansar Allah to halt its offensive.
The Houthis took the Red Sea port of Mokha in the second week of September. International outlets reported the seizure as adding to the threat facing shipping in the approaches to the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
IOM’s counts rose repeatedly through the month. The agency reported displacement passing 46,000 in the early weeks of the escalation, more than 104,000 by 17 September and close to 130,000 by 21 September.
It recorded 11,352 people newly displaced in one three-day period, and about 16,000 over a single week.
The figures from the Executive Unit and from IOM are compiled by different methods and do not match.
Fighting around Taiz carried into October. The National reported on 2 October that the Houthis were pressing an offensive toward the city and that fighting had intensified around it.
Yemen Monitor reported fighting on Taiz’s northern front between government forces and the Houthis.
The UN plan was issued in March, before the September escalation, and does not account for the displacement recorded since.
Saba is published by the government based in Aden. A separate outlet using the same name operates from Sanaa under the Houthi authorities.
Grundberg’s office posted his statement on Taiz on 1 October.
Saba did not say where in Budapest the meeting was held, or whether further contact was scheduled.
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