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Tens of Thousands of African Migrants Arrived in Yemen in 2023

Forty-three thousand African migrants are stranded in Yemen in miserable conditions. (United Nations)
Forty-three thousand African migrants are stranded in Yemen in miserable conditions. (United Nations)
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Tens of Thousands of African Migrants Arrived in Yemen in 2023

Forty-three thousand African migrants are stranded in Yemen in miserable conditions. (United Nations)
Forty-three thousand African migrants are stranded in Yemen in miserable conditions. (United Nations)

Recent UN data has shown a spike in African migrants arriving in Yemen. Around 200,000 who have arrived in the war-torn country with the aim of illegally entering Gulf countries in search of jobs.

Roughly half arrived during the first seven months of this year.

IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) confirmed the continued flow of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa to the shores of Yemen, while the number of those who returned to their country did not exceed 5,000 in 2023.

Out of the 200,000 migrants, approximately 43,000 migrants are stranded across the country.  

Since early 2022, IOM has supported more than 5,700 stranded migrants and victims of trafficking to safely return to their home countries from Yemen. Approximately 300,000 vulnerable migrants have also benefited from humanitarian assistance in Yemen, Somalia, and Djibouti.

So far in 2023, the IOM has assisted 5,631 migrants, including 5,572 Ethiopians, to return home.

The IOM is now appealing for $58.5 million through the Migrant Response Plan (MRP) for the Horn of Africa and Yemen to continue this vital support in the region.

Yemen, a country already ravaged by years of war caused by the Iran-backed Houthi militias, continues to face the harsh reality of displacement.

The first half of 2023 has seen a decrease in the number of people displaced from their homes in Yemen. The DTM recorded more than 21,066 people were forced to flee their homes, seeking safety and shelter elsewhere in the first six months of the year.

This is a half decrease from the same period in 2022 when 42,012 displacements were reported.

The governorate with the highest number of displacements in the first half of 2023 was Marib, with 1,455 households (HHs), followed by Taiz (572 HHs), Hodeidah (416 HHs), Shabwah (409 HHs) and Lahj (341 HHs). The governorates with the lowest number of displacements are Abyan, Dhale, Hadramawt, and al-Mahra.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak met with IOM Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa Othman Belbeisi in the interim capital Aden.

They discussed cooperation between Yemen and the IOM as well as the impact of the increased number of illegal migrants on Yemen’s security and economy. They also discussed the Organizations’ programs in the country.

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Arab World

Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.