Yemen's conflict forcing displaced to return home amid persisting risks: United Nations

The United Nations (UN) on 21 February 2017 announced that the complex crisis in Yemen continues to deepen. The agency also reported that around one million people, who had fled for safety, are returning to their homes mainly due to a lack of access to income and basic services in the areas of displacement.

The reports, a multi-sectoral location assessment report and a periodically updated population movement tracking report, show that there are currently two million internally displaced people (IDPs) across Yemen and one million IDP returnees.

Key highlights

• About 40% of key informants indicate that internally displaced people now intend to return home within the next three months.

• A lack of access to income and basic services in areas of displacement are the key reasons for pushing IDPs to return to the areas of their origin.

• Yemen's local communities are also under extreme strain with alarming scarcities of food and insufficient access to water and sanitation services.

• Around 84% of the country’s two million IDPs have been displaced for more than a year.

• More than 17 million people are frequently forced to skip meals. Seven million people do not even know where their next meal will come from and are ever closer to starvation.

• The risks related to the availability of food in markets and the food pipeline are fast approaching the Yemenis.

• Food shortages are widespread, food and fuel prices are rising, there are disruptions to agricultural production, and purchasing power is plunging, especially brought about by the lack of salary payments in the public sector for over six months.

About Yemeni Civil War

• The Yemeni Civil War is an ongoing conflict that began in 2015.

• The conflict is between two factions claiming to constitute the Yemeni government, along with their supporters and allies.

• Houthi forces controlling the capital Sana'a and allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have clashed with forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, based in Aden.

• Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have also carried out attacks.

• The UN states that 16200 people have been killed in Yemen, including 10000 civilians, from March 2015 to January 2017.