UN: 2.4m refugees due to war in Yemen

The renewed conflict in Yemen has forcibly displaced more than 2.4 million Yemenis and the situation is likely to worsen, a statement by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said yesterday.

According to the statement, there were 2,430,178 internally displaced Yemenis during the period between March 2015 and January 2016.

It noted that the number the number of people displaced within Yemen “remains staggeringly high and a cause for grave alarm.”

The report shows increased levels of displacement in areas where the conflict has escalated, notably in the governorates of Taiz, Hajjah, Sana’a, Amran and Sa’ada, which together account for 68 per cent of all those internally displaced in Yemen.

Some 23 per cent of those who have been displaced are from Taiz, which has been under siege for several months.

“The figures also mask the human face of the conflict and the continuing suffering and growing needs,” UNHCR spokesperson Leo Dobbs told a news briefing in Geneva.

“The situation is likely to get worse amid increasingly dire humanitarian and socio-economic conditions and with no political settlement in sight.”