Yemen emergency

“I was living very close to the fighting. I had to move to another area because families were killed and injured all around us. We moved three times from one neighborhood to another to avoid bullets and airstrikes.”

Nabiha, internally displaced Yemeni and mother of three

Fighting in Yemen, already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, has severely compounded needs arising from long years of poverty and insecurity. The worsening violence has disrupted millions of lives, resulting in widespread casualties and massive displacement, and the situation is rapidly deteriorating.

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Civilians bear the brunt of the crisis, with more than 20 million Yemenis now in need of humanitarian assistance. Those forced to flee their homes are especially at risk. More than 4 million people now languish in desperate conditions, away from home and deprived of basic needs. 

Yemen is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Without help, many more lives will be lost to violence, treatable illnesses or lack of food, water and shelter.

What is UNHCR doing to help?

We provide life-saving aid to displaced Yemenis, as well as to refugees and asylum-seekers, across the country.

Under the humanitarian coordination system in Yemen, we lead in the provision of protection, shelter and non-food items. We provide cash assistance for displaced people to cover their most urgent needs such as food and medicine, emergency shelter, and core relief items such as mattresses, blankets, sleeping mats, kitchen sets, solar lamps and more to help those displaced and most vulnerable. Our assistance reaches people in need in all 20 governorates affected by the conflict.

Our shelter kits, mats and plastic sheets help families repair homes damaged in the conflict and provide some privacy and protection to those living in collective buildings. We support health facilities that serve refugees, asylum-seekers and Yemenis affected by violence, and we work to prevent and control the spread of cholera, which has arisen as a result of the conflict. As well as helping protect families against COVID-19 by distributing hygiene kits and providing safety information across the country.

We provide legal and cash assistance as well as psycho-social support to help those affected by the war, along with a wide range of protection services such as prevention of gender-based violence and specific interventions focusing on women and children.

We also continue to protect and support more than 84,000 refugees and 14,000 asylum-seekers, mainly from the Horn of Africa, who remain in Yemen despite the conflict and are particularly at risk.

However, limited funding for our work in Yemen means we are not able to fully address these massive needs, limiting our capacity to provide life-saving relief.

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To find the latest figures, please visit our Data Portal. You can also read the latest external updates on our Global Focus page.