Families flee barefoot as Houthi offensive drives new wave of displacement in Yemen

Thousands of Yemenis have abandoned their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs as a renewed Houthi offensive along the Red Sea coast forces one of the largest displacement waves the country has seen in years.

The scale of the exodus has grown by the day since the Iran backed group launched a rapid advance down Yemen’s western coastline last week, seizing territory and pushing toward the strategically vital Bab el Mandeb Strait. Aid officials estimate that well over 100,000 people have fled their homes since the fighting reignited, with the International Organization for Migration reporting that more than 82,000 people had been displaced within days of the offensive beginning, including over 2,000 who crossed the Gulf of Aden by boat to reach Djibouti.

Residents describe scenes of chaos as the front line shifted with little warning. Alaa Ali Salem, who fled on a motorcycle with his family, said the roads became so congested that the vehicle overturned during the escape, injuring his wife and children. “We set out in hysterical panic, not knowing where we were heading,” he said. In Aden, Muhammad Aiyash fled with his three children after a drone strike sent shrapnel into his wife’s chest, killing her. He left the ancient port city of Mocha with no belongings, saying he did not possess so much as a grain of flour or a change of clothes for his children.

The United Nations refugee agency confirmed more than 100,000 people had been displaced by the latest fighting, most of them leaving in a hurry and carrying almost nothing. In Taiz governorate, which has absorbed a large share of the displaced, camp administrators describe conditions as dire. Ali al Shumairi, who oversees displacement camps in the province, said nearly 66,000 people arrived there between mid August and mid September, with the vast majority coming from five districts that saw the heaviest clashes. One woman, forced to leave her wheelchair behind because it could not handle the rugged terrain her family crossed to reach safety, is among those now sheltering in the camps.

Aid workers say the needs on the ground are acute and immediate. A CARE country director, Iman Abdullahi, said displaced families urgently require food, maternal and newborn healthcare, hygiene supplies, private latrines and mental health support. He described one woman forced to wash her only set of clothes and wait inside her tent until they dried because she had nothing else to wear, and another who fled just two weeks after giving birth. Some families have resorted to stitching makeshift shelter from plastic wheat sacks.

The renewed fighting marks a sharp reversal for a country that had seen relative calm since a 2022 ceasefire halted the worst of a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen. Saudi Arabia intervened the following year at the head of a coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government. That earlier phase of the conflict killed an estimated 150,000 people and pushed the country, already the poorest in the Arab world, to the edge of famine. Hostilities resumed in July after the Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, and the fighting has escalated steadily since, drawing in Saudi airstrikes and expanding Houthi attacks on Saudi territory.

The United Nations’ special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, has warned that the renewed violence should alarm the international community, cautioning that the country risks sliding back into the kind of large scale conflict that devastated it a decade ago. The World Health Organization and the UN humanitarian office have reported civilian casualties on both sides of the border as the fighting spreads, including deaths and dozens of wounded from strikes and stray fire.

Beyond the humanitarian toll, the Houthi advance carries global implications. Control over the Bab el Mandeb Strait would give the group leverage over one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors, an alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz that has already seen disrupted traffic amid the wider regional war involving Iran. Analysts say further Houthi gains along the coast could compound existing pressure on global oil and shipping markets, layering a new maritime security crisis on top of an already fragile humanitarian emergency.

For now, the displaced continue to arrive in makeshift camps across southern Yemen with little more than what they managed to carry, and aid agencies say the flow shows no sign of slowing as fighting continues along multiple fronts.