A Yemeni governmental body said on Sunday that nearly 147,000 people have been displaced this month amid ongoing military escalation in the war-torn country, Anadolu reports.
The Executive Unit for the Management of Displaced Persons Camps documented the displacement of 21,583 families, comprising 146,943 people, between Sept. 1 and 18 due to deteriorating security conditions.
It said the displacement was recorded in eight provinces: Taiz and Lahj in the southwest; Aden, Abyan and Shabwa in the south; Al-Hudaydah in the west; and Hadhramout and Al Mahrah in the east.
According to the report, Taiz received the largest number of displaced, with 11,534 families comprising 80,792 people, distributed across 15 districts. Lahj ranked second, receiving 5,472 families comprising 38,304 people across nine districts.
The government body also recorded the arrival of 1,622 families, comprising 7,162 people, in Aden, most of whom were hosted by local families in several districts.
It said 1,471 families comprising 10,297 people were displaced to the districts of Hays and Al Khawkhah in Al-Hudaydah, while another 1,278 families comprising 8,946 people arrived in Abyan.
The body also recorded 110 displaced families in Hadhramout, 70 in Al Mahrah and 26 in Shabwa.
It called on international and local organizations to provide “urgent, life-saving assistance” to displaced people, warning that delays in the response could “exacerbate the crisis and increase pressure on host communities.”
The rise in displacement comes amid a broad military escalation along Yemen’s western coast and in areas of Taiz province, where the Houthis have advanced and taken control of positions previously held by government forces.
Fighting has resumed on several fronts in Taiz, Marib and Al Jawf in the north, Al Bayda in central Yemen, amid a military escalation that began in early July, in the worst escalation since a UN-brokered truce in April 2022.
The fighting intensified in September, with the Houthis taking control of several strategic positions in Al-Hudaydah and Taiz provinces, including the strategic city of Mokha, extending as far as Mayun Island in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Yemen has been at war since the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and several provinces in September 2014, before a Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 in support of Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
