Arab News | Displacement in Yemen tops 290,000, including hundreds of women about to give birth, UN warns

NEW YORK CITY: More than 290,000 people have been forced from their homes since the beginning of August by the resurgence of the conflict in Yemen, the UN said on Friday. It warned that the fighting showed no sign of easing and thousands of pregnant women are among those uprooted.

The UN Population Fund estimated that nearly 6,100 pregnant women were among the recently displaced, including 600 expected to give birth within the next two weeks, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. The agency had deployed mobile teams and midwives to displacement sites and was delivering maternal health supplies.

The violence is also affecting people who were previously displaced from other countries and sought safety in Yemen; more than 65,000 refugees and asylum-seekers faced a “rapidly worsening humanitarian situation,” according to the UN Refugee Agency, with disrupted services and rising food and fuel prices making it harder for families to meet their basic needs. Since August, the agency has helped more than 600 Somali refugees return home voluntarily.

Humanitarian partners have so far managed to reach nearly 249,000 displaced persons with food aid, hygiene supplies and emergency cash, and have been scaling up their response where they can, Dujarric said.

The UN reiterated its call for all parties involved in the conflict to “protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, respect international humanitarian law, and allow safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access, so that assistance can reach everyone who needs it.”

The latest displacements were in addition to more than 5.2 million people already internally displaced in Yemen before the fighting reignited, and thousands more have fled across the Red Sea to Djibouti.