Yemen's vice foreign minister discusses displacement and migration with IOM in Geneva

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GENEVA, Switzerland — Yemen’s vice foreign minister discussed displacement and migration with a senior official of the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, Yemen’s state news agency said.

Mustafa Noman met Ugochi Daniels, the IOM’s deputy director general for operations, the agency, Saba, reported.

Noman holds the foreign affairs and expatriates portfolio in the internationally recognised government. Daniels oversees the organisation’s operational work.

The two met on the sidelines of the 77th session of the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

That session opened at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Yemen’s state broadcaster reported the opening on Oct. 12.

The account of the meeting rests on Saba. No independent confirmation of what was said has been published.

Saba said the talks covered the humanitarian situation in Yemen, rising displacement and irregular migration from the Horn of Africa.

The two also discussed cooperation between the government and the organisation, according to the agency.

Noman said Houthi military escalation in Taiz and along the western coast had displaced close to a million more people in two months, Saba reported.

He did not say how that figure was reached.

IOM’s own monitoring gives a smaller number. The agency recorded 217,303 people, or 36,216 families, displaced between Aug. 1 and Oct. 12.

Those figures come from the Displacement Tracking Matrix, the organisation’s field monitoring system.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported a similar scale on Oct. 12, citing IOM. It put the number at about 216,000 since early August.

More than 172,000 of those came from Taiz governorate, according to that report.

Taiz accounts for 55 percent of the recorded displacement, IOM said. It is the worst affected governorate.

Yemen Herald could not reconcile the minister’s figure with the organisation’s published totals.

Noman raised the position of migrants inside Yemen, Saba said. Yemeni officials put the number in government-controlled areas at more than 400,000.

He warned against the forced recruitment of migrants, the agency reported.

He also raised threats to navigation in the Red Sea and violations against United Nations staff and humanitarian organisations.

Noman called for regional cooperation against smuggling and human trafficking, according to Saba.

He proposed a regional conference bringing together countries of origin, countries of transit and international donors, the agency said.

Daniels said IOM was committed to widening its humanitarian response, Saba reported.

That response covers displaced people, migrants and the communities hosting them, according to the agency.

She welcomed a proposed joint appeal to raise additional funding, Saba said.

Daniels also pressed for regional coordination on migration and on trafficking networks, according to the agency.

Saba did not say whether any new measures were agreed.

The meeting was one of several Noman held in Geneva during the session.

He met Djibouti’s interior minister, Omar Abdi Said, on the same sidelines. Those talks covered the movement of migrants and displaced people across the Red Sea, Saba said.

Yemen sits on one of the busiest irregular migration routes in the region.

Migrants from the Horn of Africa cross the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea into Yemen, most of them travelling on towards Saudi Arabia.

The route runs through territory held by both sides in the war.

Fighting in Taiz and along the western coast has intensified in recent weeks.

President Rashad al-Alimi said on Oct. 14 that the government offensive it calls the Dawn of Yemen operation would continue. The Houthis dispute government accounts of the fighting.

Yemen’s health ministry said on Saturday that medicines, intravenous fluids, medical supplies and fuel at health facilities in Taiz were nearing depletion.

Yemen’s social affairs ministry appealed this week for urgent humanitarian aid for Taiz, Saba reported.

Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani said the Houthi siege of the city amounted to war crimes. The Houthis reject that account.

Government forces advanced towards the Bab al-Mandab strait in early October, Euronews reported.

Attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab strait have disrupted the route since 2023. Several operators have continued to send vessels around southern Africa instead.

Yemen’s interior ministry said at least six civilians were killed and 18 wounded in shelling of residential areas in Taiz governorate in the 24 hours to Tuesday.

The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms recorded 43 violations in the governorate over the same period. It said five civilians were killed and 17 wounded.

Saba gave no figure for how many of the 400,000 migrants it described had arrived this year.

The United Nations humanitarian response plan for Yemen, issued in March, said more than 22 million people needed assistance.

The plan recorded 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure.

It counted more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished. Of those, 516,157 had severe acute malnutrition.

The plan put the number of internally displaced people at 5.2 million.

It sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of them.

The Executive Committee is the governing body of the UN refugee agency. It meets in Geneva each October.

The Presidential Leadership Council has governed the internationally recognised side of the conflict since it replaced former president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2022.

The United Nations moved its main Yemen offices to Aden in September 2025.

Saba did not say how long the meeting with Daniels lasted. It did not name any other officials present.