48,000 displaced by battles around Yemen’s Mokha: UN

DUBAI

Fighting around the historic Yemeni port of Mokha has forced more than 48,000 people from their homes, a U.N. official said March 1, with many facing the threat of further displacement.

Shabia Mantoo, Yemen spokeswoman for the U.N.’s refugee agency, told AFP more than 48,000 people had left Mokha and the nearby town of Dhubab in recent weeks.

Fighting has intensified along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, where forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi are battling to retake large parts of the country seized by Shiite Houthi rebels.

Loyalist troops took Mokha on Feb. 10 and announced they aimed to push north and take the country’s main Red Sea port of Hodeida next. 

Mantoo said many of those fleeing the fighting around Mokha made their way north to Ibb district and Hodeida province.

“Eight thousand people have been displaced from Mokha and Dhubab to Hodeida alone, many of them with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs,” Mantoo said.  

“The whole country is suffering from multiple displacement,” Mantoo said.

“People move from one place to another, because eventually it gets just as bad.” 

The U.N. estimates three million people have been displaced across Yemen.