Nearly 86,000 flee fighting in Yemen: UN

Flaring fighting between government forces and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen has displaced nearly 86,000 people, the United Nations said Sunday, with the number surging by 10,000 from a day earlier.

Tens of thousands have taken flight in the wake of a week-long Houthi offensive that culminated in the group capturing the remainder of Yemen's Red Sea coast and several strategic islands, cementing their hold on the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.

"Displacement in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, has now reached 85,818 people," the International Organization for Migration said in a statement, a day after putting the number of people displaced since July at 76,000.

The UN agency stressed that more than 82,000 of those displaced had been forced to flee their homes since the start of September, when the Houthis, who have for years controlled large parts of northern Yemen, launched their large-scale offensive against Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces.

The displacements had happened across the west coast and Taiz areas, the IOM said.

Taiz was the hardest-hit, it said, with some 9,280 households, or nearly 56,000 people, displaced from districts in that province alone.

And now, some of those displaced have begun fleeing Yemen altogether, IOM said, pointing out that more than 2,000 people had reached Djibouti.

The UN body told AFP that the first arrivals landed on Thursday evening.

Djibouti lies opposite Yemen across the Bab al-Mandab strait, which has become an important artery for Saudi Arabian oil exports after Iran began its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the Middle East war.

Those arriving in Djibouti -- many of them women and young children -- had been transported to a site in Obock where they were receiving assistance, IOM said, warning that "more are expected to flee as fighting intensifies".

"Behind every number is a family who's lost everything," IOM chief Amy Pope said in the statement.

"Many have been displaced multiple times. People are crossing the sea with nothing because they have no other choice left," she said.

Pope highlighted that Yemen was a "country torn by poverty and conflict, and it cannot carry this crisis alone".

"I call on donors to scale up support now, for those arriving in Djibouti and for the communities in Obock receiving them."