By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA, Sept 18 (Reuters) – At least 112,000 people have been displaced inside Yemen within the last two weeks as fighting continues along the country’s west coast amid a renewed conflict, while nearly 3,000 have fled by sea to Djibouti, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have stepped up attacks on Saudi cities and energy infrastructure while advancing along Yemen’s Red Sea coast towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key shipping route. Responding to the Houthi offensive, the Saudi and Yemeni air forces have bombarded Houthi targets.
Nearly 3,000 people have crossed the Gulf of Aden to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa in less than a week as escalating violence have forced more families to flee, Sandrine Desamours, the representative for the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Djibouti.
The government of Djibouti is preparing for the arrival of up to 10,000 refugees – which will add acute pressure on the country’s health care and education services, she said.
The UN International Organization for Migration said people are fleeing on overcrowded boats and arriving with very limited food and water. Most fleeing are Yemeni families seeking refuge in Djibouti, but IOM is also beginning to see a small number of migrants, mainly from Ethiopia, heading in the same direction.
Additionally, authorities in Somaliland and Puntland have also reported increased arrivals from Yemen, including Yemeni refugees and Somali refugee returnees, though numbers remain in the hundreds for now, UNHCR said.
UN agencies described the latest fighting as being a crisis on top of multiple crises as the country’s health services and economy have been shattered amid a long civil war between forces of the internationally recognised, Saudi-backed administration and the Houthis created one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.
The Houthi advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast is bolstering Tehran’s hand in its conflict with the US, as the group tightens its control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a strategic chokepoint for global oil and commodities shipping, more than six months after US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; additional reporting by Michael Georgy and Vincent Mumo NzilaniEditing by Linda Pasquini and Toby Chopra)
