Natural Disasters Increase Displacement Rates to 34% in Yemen

Aid worker helps build camps for the displaced in Marib, Yemen (United Nations)
Aid worker helps build camps for the displaced in Marib, Yemen (United Nations)
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Natural Disasters Increase Displacement Rates to 34% in Yemen

Aid worker helps build camps for the displaced in Marib, Yemen (United Nations)
Aid worker helps build camps for the displaced in Marib, Yemen (United Nations)

A majority of Yemen's internally displaced wish to return to their areas of origin, contrary to previous data from last year's beginning, according to recent data by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

According to data in the second half of 2022, 41 percent of the families interviewed planned to remain in their current displacement sites despite widespread concerns about a lack of essential services, while 28 percent had yet to decide.

According to the data, plans to stay in the sites are often linked to security concerns, less than third of the families reported plans to return (31 percent), compared to seven percent in previous data.

-Livelihood concerns

Marib, Hodeidah, and Taiz recorded the highest levels of new displacement, showing that around 41 percent of all respondent households planned to stay in their current locations at the assessment time.

The families most commonly cited insecurity in places of origin (42 percent), followed by concerns about livelihood opportunities (35 percent).

As a secondary reason for staying, the questionnaire revealed that livelihood concerns ranked highest on the list (48 percent), followed by worries about shelter in places of origin (11 percent) and security concerns (11 percent).

In response to a request to identify three potential risks while staying in displacement sites, almost all households cited a lack of essential services, such as food, health, water, and education (98 percent).

About 15 percent cited insecurity as a risk in their current locations. Only 4 percent reported a risk of hostility from host communities outside the IDP sites.

The list of highest priority needs expected during the extended stay in the current IDP sites was mainly identified as food (95 percent), water (60 percent), shelter (57 percent), and health care (53 percent).

In addition, 12 percent of families indicated the need for security in IDP sites. More than two-thirds of respondents who intend to stay reported having plans to make a living in their current displacement sites (68 percent) in agriculture, construction, and other daily work activities.

- Disasters increased displacement

According to another UNFPA report, the six months truce led to a decrease fighting, which led to an 18 percent drop in the displacement rate over the past year, but warns that natural disasters, such as severe seasonal floods and drought, disrupted livelihoods, rescue missions, and services.

According to the UN response mechanism led by the Population Fund, 447,000 individuals were assisted during 2022. Among the newly displaced, 62 percent were displaced due to the conflict, while 38 percent were displaced due to heavy rains and floods.

In turn, IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix assessed current intentions for the return of IDPs in 20 IDP sites in Aden.

New displacements to and within Aden were relatively uncommon in 2022, constituting two percent of all registered new removals.

Most families arrived from Hodeidah (75 percent), and 19 percent arrived from Taiz, which indicates that most migrated families from the west coast came to Aden.



Gaza Rescuers Say 23 Killed in Israel Strike on Residential Block

A man walks amid the rubble of a building as Palestinian rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike on a residential area in Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood, on April 9, 2025. (AFP)
A man walks amid the rubble of a building as Palestinian rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike on a residential area in Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood, on April 9, 2025. (AFP)
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Gaza Rescuers Say 23 Killed in Israel Strike on Residential Block

A man walks amid the rubble of a building as Palestinian rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike on a residential area in Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood, on April 9, 2025. (AFP)
A man walks amid the rubble of a building as Palestinian rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike on a residential area in Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood, on April 9, 2025. (AFP)

Gaza's civil defense agency said an Israeli strike on a residential building in Gaza City killed at least 23 people Wednesday, most of them children or women, as the military said it targeted a "senior Hamas" fighter.

The latest strike comes weeks into a renewed offensive by Israel's military on the war-battered territory, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, while an aid blockade has revived the specter of famine for its 2.4 million people.

The strike took place in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, the agency's spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

"The death toll from the Shujaiya massacre has risen to 23 martyrs, including eight children and eight women," he said, adding that more than 60 people were wounded.

"There are still people trapped under the rubble."  

Ayub Salim, a 26-year-old Shujaiya resident, told AFP he witnessed the strike on the four-storey block.  

He said the area was hit with "multiple missiles" and was "overcrowded with tents, displaced people and homes".  

"Shrapnel flew in all directions," he said, speaking of "a terrifying and indescribable scene".  

"Dust and massive destruction filled the entire place, we couldn't see anything, just the screams and panic of the people".  

Salim said the dead were "torn to pieces".  

"Even now, emergency crews are still transporting the dead and the injured. It is truly a horrific massacre," he said.  

A crew from the Gaza civil defense agency rushed to the scene, only to find several people trapped under the rubble, a rescuer said.

"This house was home to many people who believed they were safe. It was blown up over their heads," Ibrahim Abu al-Rish told AFP while men worked hard to clear out rubble behind him.  

He added that the strike hit while many children were playing inside.  

"The house was directly bombed, and the entire residential area was destroyed," he said.  

"We pulled out the remains of women and children. There are still people buried under the rubble."  

First responders and neighbors worked to break through the concrete floor of an entire storey that collapsed in the strike and trapped residents.  

Taking turns swinging a sledgehammer through the thick, hard surface, they eventually broke a hole through which the bodies of children were extracted and taken away wrapped in dusty blankets.  

- 'Bloody massacre' -  

When asked by AFP about the strike, the Israeli military said it "struck a senior Hamas terrorist who was responsible for planning and executing terrorist attacks" from the area.  

It did not give the target's name and renewed its claim that the group uses "human shields", which Hamas denies.  

Hamas condemned the strike as one of the "most heinous acts of genocide."  

"The terrorist Zionist occupation army has committed a bloody massacre by bombing a densely populated residential area filled with civilians and displaced people," the group said in a statement.

"These ongoing massacres against our defenseless people -- with full support from the American administration, which is complicit in the aggression -- represent a stain on the conscience of the international community."  

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority's foreign ministry condemned the strike as a "heinous massacre".  

"The ministry considers it an official Israeli attempt to systematically kill our people en masse and destroy the very foundations of their existence in the Gaza Strip, thus forcing them to emigrate," it said in a statement.  

Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.  

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Wednesday that at least 1,482 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,846.  

Hamas's October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.  

Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas's political bureau, told AFP on Tuesday that it was "necessary to reach a ceasefire" in Gaza.  

He added that "communication with the mediators is still ongoing" but that "so far, there are no new proposals".  

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that new negotiations were in the works aimed at getting more hostages released from captivity in Gaza.  

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas's attack on Israel, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.