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UN to Relocate 14,000 Refugees from Frontlines in Yemen’s Marib

An internally displaced Yemeni family sit outside their shelter at Al-Suwaidan camp in Marib city, Yemen, June 2021. UNHCR/Jihad Al-Nahari
An internally displaced Yemeni family sit outside their shelter at Al-Suwaidan camp in Marib city, Yemen, June 2021. UNHCR/Jihad Al-Nahari
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UN to Relocate 14,000 Refugees from Frontlines in Yemen’s Marib

An internally displaced Yemeni family sit outside their shelter at Al-Suwaidan camp in Marib city, Yemen, June 2021. UNHCR/Jihad Al-Nahari
An internally displaced Yemeni family sit outside their shelter at Al-Suwaidan camp in Marib city, Yemen, June 2021. UNHCR/Jihad Al-Nahari

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that it plans to relocate 14,000 refugees from frontlines in the southern entrance of Marib city to safer areas in Marib al Wadi.

“As frontlines approach the southern entrance of Marib, hosting sites and civilian populations located in the city's outskirts face immediate safety concerns,” the UN agency warned.

It said that on the western front, nearly 1,930 displaced families in IDP sites in Sirwah district are now five kilometers away from the ongoing clashes, with increasing concern for their safety.

“UNHCR's partner in Marib, Society for Humanitarian Solidarity (SHS), in coordination with the Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster, is currently seeking relocation plans for these households to safer areas in Marib al Wadi, should there be a sudden displacement,” it noted.

Since the beginning of the year, UNHCR said it has distributed more than $62 million in cash assistance to over 175,000 displaced Yemeni and refugee families and that a large portion of this assistance went to displaced Yemenis, four times more at risk of hunger than the average Yemeni population.

According to the latest post-distribution monitoring data, up to 91 percent of beneficiaries spent the assistance on food and over 20 percent on rent.

UNHCR said that as part of the ongoing efforts to respond to the needs of some 1,260 newly assessed families (more than 7,000 individuals), SHS provided non-food items to 585 families (3,041 individuals), and emergency shelter kits to 340 families (1,747 individuals) recently displaced from Rahba, Al-Abdiyah, Al-Jubah and Jabal-Murad districts into Marib City and Marib Al Wadi districts.

Additionally, the UN agency has provided cash assistance to over 66,500 families in Marib so far this year.

In a separate report, UNHCR revealed that food, health, and nutrition service shortage in Harf Sufyan led to a spike in malnutrition cases, with more than 160 suspected cases.

It added that the start of the winter season in Sanaa governorate has created a dire need for winter and emergency shelter kits.

The UN agency also said that government-held areas host over 60 percent of all 141,600 refugees and asylum-seekers in Yemen and that most of them live in the urban areas of Aden, Mukalla and Sayun.

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Arab World

Erdogan: Israel's Attacks on Syria, Lebanon Threaten Türkiye Too

FILED - 30 October 2025, Türkiye, Ankara: FILE PHOTO - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Türkiye, speaks at the presidential palace. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
FILED - 30 October 2025, Türkiye, Ankara: FILE PHOTO - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Türkiye, speaks at the presidential palace. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
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Erdogan: Israel's Attacks on Syria, Lebanon Threaten Türkiye Too

FILED - 30 October 2025, Türkiye, Ankara: FILE PHOTO - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Türkiye, speaks at the presidential palace. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
FILED - 30 October 2025, Türkiye, Ankara: FILE PHOTO - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Türkiye, speaks at the presidential palace. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israel's attacks on Syria and Lebanon had reached a point where they also threaten Türkiye, adding Israel's "aggression" ⁠posed a threat ⁠to the whole world and must be stopped.

Speaking to lawmakers in parliament, ⁠Erdogan also said there were initiatives, led by Israel, to destabilize the Mediterranean region and warned that "nobody should chase adventures" or join Israel's "boat of mischief.”

Ankara's response ⁠to ⁠moves violating the rights of Turks and Turkish Cypriots would be met with a clear and strong response, he warned.

Arab World

Russia Says it is Discussing 'Reformatting' of Military Facilities in Syria

People rest outside the Kremlin on a warm summer day in downtown Moscow, Russia, 05 June 2026. EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV
People rest outside the Kremlin on a warm summer day in downtown Moscow, Russia, 05 June 2026. EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV
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Russia Says it is Discussing 'Reformatting' of Military Facilities in Syria

People rest outside the Kremlin on a warm summer day in downtown Moscow, Russia, 05 June 2026. EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV
People rest outside the Kremlin on a warm summer day in downtown Moscow, Russia, 05 June 2026. EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV

Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that cooperation with Syria was developing very actively and that Moscow was discussing with Damascus a "possible reformatting" of its military facilities in Syria.

The December 2024 ousting of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, a close Russian ally, raised questions about the future of Russia's Hmeimim airbase in Latakia and its naval facility at Tartous. But Moscow has since built relations with Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is now Syria's president.

"Russian-Syrian ⁠cooperation is developing ⁠very actively," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said when asked about reported plans for the creation of a logistics hub in Tartous to distribute goods imported from Russia across Syria.

"Within the framework of contacts with Syrian partners, the issue of ⁠Russia's military presence in Syria is also being discussed, including in the context of a possible reformatting of the functionality of Russian military facilities,” Reuters quoted her as saying.

The bases in Syria are an integral part of Russia's global military presence: The Tartous naval base is Russia's only Mediterranean repair and resupply hub, while Hmeimim is a major staging post for military and mercenary activity in Africa.

Russia intervened militarily in Syria in ⁠2015 ⁠to back Assad in a civil war. Reuters reported in 2024 that Russia was pulling back forces from front lines in northern Syria and from posts in mountains dominated by Assad's Alawite community, but was not leaving its Mediterranean bases in Hmeimim and Tartous.

Arab World

Amnesty Accuses Israel of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of West Bank Bedouins

An aerial view shows the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, Jan. 24, 2023. (AP)
An aerial view shows the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, Jan. 24, 2023. (AP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of West Bank Bedouins

An aerial view shows the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, Jan. 24, 2023. (AP)
An aerial view shows the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, Jan. 24, 2023. (AP)

Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of conducting an "ethnic cleansing" campaign against Bedouin and herding communities in the occupied West Bank, saying the measures were designed to accelerate the annexation of the Palestinian territory.

A new report by the rights group found that these rural Palestinian communities are bearing the brunt of Israeli settler violence and forced displacement.

"Israeli authorities are accelerating annexation through a state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities" of the West Bank, said the report released on Wednesday.

Amnesty said its research showed that 27 Bedouin and herding communities comprising hundreds of Palestinians were forcibly displaced between 2023 and 2025 or were at risk of displacement in the West Bank's Area C, which encompasses 60 percent of the territory and is under Israeli control under the 1990s Oslo agreements.

In the report titled "Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel's ethnic cleansing of West Bank Bedouin and herding communities", Amnesty accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, one of Israel's most right-wing to date, of catering to the settler movement's religious nationalist agenda.

"It has accelerated settlement expansion and land grabs, increased financial and logistical support to settlements, and it has armed settlers, thereby enabling a brutal state-sanctioned campaign of settler violence," the report said.

In an apparent effort to counter arguments by Israeli officials that settler violence is caused by bad actors in that community, Amnesty pointed to "explicit calls by Israeli officials for settlement expansion" and "measures aimed at minimizing Palestinian presence in Area C".

The "ethnic cleansing campaign is state-led, and state-sponsored, not driven by rogue settlers or so-called extremist ministers", the report concluded.

- 'Unlawful deportation' -

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in a settlement, is a vocal proponent of West Bank's annexation and on Tuesday was banned from France for actively promoting it.

In May 2026, the UN rights office had also decried indications of "ethnic cleansing" in Gaza and the West Bank.

Amnesty pointed to Israel's legal responsibilities as an occupying power in the West Bank, and its violations of international humanitarian law.

"These violations include the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer and the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer of population," the report said.

Bedouin and herders' communities, often isolated and without security services, are particularly vulnerable to the threat of violence or displacement.

Since 2023, AFP reporters have witnessed the departure of several Bedouin communities of the West Bank under pressure from settler groups, including the community of Ras Ein al-Auja in early 2026.

"What is happening today is the complete collapse of the community as a result of the settlers' continuous and repeated attacks," Farhan Jahaleen, a Bedouin from the village, told AFP in January.

Since Netanyahu's government came to power in late 2022, it has greenlighted the creation of 102 settlements in the West Bank, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now.

Excluding east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, among some three million Palestinians.

All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law.

Some settlers have engaged in arson, vandalism, theft of private property in Palestinian communities, as well as physical assaults and sometimes murder, according to rights groups.

The number of such incidents steadily increased after the start of the war in Gaza in 2023, reaching an average of six per day in the West Bank in 2026, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.