Fighting around Yemen's port of Mokha has forced some 45,000 people from their homes, a UN official said Wednesday (March 1st), with many facing continued uncertainty and the threat of further displacement, AFP reported.
Data compiled by the UNHCR and the UN Migration Agency (IOM) showed 45,000 people had been displaced in the last few weeks from Mokha and the nearby town of Dhubab, said Shabia Mantoo, the Yemen spokeswoman for UNHCR.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in the south-west of Yemen, where forces loyal to President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi are battling to retake large parts of the country seized by the Houthis (Ansarallah).
Loyalist troops took Mokha on February 10th and announced they aimed to push north and take the country's main Red Sea port of al-Hodeida next.
Mantoo said many of those fleeing the fighting around Mokha made their way north to Ibb district and to al-Hodeida province.
"Eight thousand people have been displaced from Mokha and Dhubab to al-Hodeida alone, many of them with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs," she said.
Two major concerns now are how to maintain access to the area and where the displaced will go if the fighting reaches al-Hodeida.
"The whole country is suffering from multiple displacement," Mantoo said. "People move from one place to another, because eventually it gets just as bad."
The new figure on internally displaced persons marks a sharp rise from UNHCR data released on February 10th, which reported 34,000 people displaced in the fighting since January around Mokha and Dhubab.
