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Nearly 16,000 people have been newly displaced in Yemen over the past week as insecurity and conflict continue along the country’s western coast and southern regions, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
In a statement on Monday (September 28), the UN agency said 145,308 people, or 24,218 families, had been displaced across eight Yemeni provinces since fighting intensified along the western coast in June. Of them, 15,870 people were newly displaced between September 21 and Monday alone, accounting for more than 12% of the total.
“Every week, we are seeing thousands more people forced to flee, leaving everything behind,” said Abdusattar Esoyev, IOM Yemen’s mission chief.
He said the figures represented parents rushing to protect their children, elderly people unable to travel far and families that already had very few resources. They urgently need assistance, he added, calling for humanitarian operations to be scaled up quickly to keep pace with the displacement.
According to IOM data, Taiz province is hosting the largest number of displaced people, with 81,444 people, more than half of the total displaced population. The number there increased by nearly 8,000 in just one week.
The figures for other provinces are 34,860 in Lahj, 12,456 in Aden, 8,244 in Al Hudaydah, 5,568 in Abyan, 1,974 in Hadramout, 750 in Marib and 12 in Al Mahrah.
Aden recorded the largest weekly increase, with 3,510 newly displaced people—nearly 40% more than the previous week.
IOM said local residents in Taiz, Lahj and Aden had provided shelter to people fleeing the conflict. However, it warned that local communities alone could not meet the needs of such a large number of displaced people.
Displaced families urgently need shelter, food and protection, while communities hosting them also require support, the agency said.
IOM called for the safety of civilians and humanitarian workers to be protected and for safe and unhindered humanitarian access to displaced families and the communities hosting them.
The agency also warned that the number of displaced people could rise further in the coming days if the situation remains unstable. Source: Anadolu
