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UN: 1m displaced Yemenis at risk due to Marib unrest

April 20, 2021 at 10:40 am

Yemeni refugees seen at a camp in Yemen on 24 November 2019 [Mohammed Hamoud/Anadolu Agency]

The  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Yemen yesterday warned that more than one million displaced Yemenis are at risk due to the ongoing fighting in the Marib Governorate.

The UN office said on Twitter that tens of thousands of displaced Yemenis in Marib could be forced to flee due to the ongoing fighting. Fighting has recently intensified in Marib, the last stronghold of Saudi-backed forces in the north of the country.

“Since the beginning of 2021, the escalation in hostilities has led to the displacement of over 13,600 people (2,272 families) in Marib – a region that is hosting a quarter of Yemen’s 4 million internally displaced people,” UNHCR said on its website.

On Sunday, the Executive Unit for the Management of Displaced Persons Camps in Marib, the Yemeni government agency that administers the camps, revealed that as many as 24,094 people have been displaced from 6 February to 16 April due to the fighting.

It added that the displaced “need shelter, food, and drinking water,” noting that most of them had been displaced from the Sirwah district, west of the Marib Governorate.

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