Yemen - IOM resumed humanitarian evacuation of Third Country Nationals (TCNs) out of Yemen on Tuesday (28/4) after over a week of suspension. But due to aerial bombing of the Sana’a runway after the flight, further flights scheduled for this week are now are on hold.

On Monday 20 April, IOM decided to temporarily suspend its evacuation operations in Yemen, due to growing administrative difficulties faced in operating flights out of Sana’a airport. The resumption of evacuation charter flights came after the organization received assurances from airport authorities that they would facilitate humanitarian work.

“We are grateful to our partners and our staff on the ground for working so hard to allow us to resume these flights,” said Mohammed Abdiker, IOM Director of Operations and Emergencies. But due to the events of Tuesday, additional flights have been postponed until further notice.

The charter flight that left Sana’a bound for Khartoum in Sudan on Tuesday carried 141 passengers, many of whom had waited weeks to leave Yemen.

Since the evacuations began, IOM has assisted over 500 TCNs from over 20 countries to leave Yemen on three flights.

Despite the difficulties, IOM continues to provide food, shelter, water and sanitation to stranded migrants inside Yemen – over 500 of them in the northern city of Haradh.

IOM teams are also distributing non-food relief items (NFIs) and shelter kits to internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities in Sana’a, Abyan and Aden.

The IOM health teams, working from fixed clinics and mobile units are also continuing their work in Aden, Abyan, Lahj, and Haradh, assisting IDPs, TCNs and affected local people. Over 1,000 people are believed to have been killed and nearly 4,400 injured by the violence in Yemen.

The crisis in Yemen has sent a wave of migrants and TCNs fleeing by boat to the Horn of Africa. They include many Somalis. On April 22, 338 arrivals were registered in Somaliland and on April 26, a single boat carrying 1,153 arrived in Bossaso, Puntland.

Of the 1,153, 710 were Somali refugee returnees, 417 were Somali migrants and 15 were Yemenis. Only 12 were TCNs. Some 735 of the passengers were women. 

In Bossaso, 520 were taken to a transit center where IOM provides water, hygiene and sanitation facilities. Food, health care and other services are provided by other agencies. IOM also verifies the identity of the migrants and provides onward transportation. With the latest arrivals, the transit center is reaching its capacity limit.

“IOM and partners are working with very limited funding to cope with the impact of the Yemen crisis in the Horn of Africa,” said T. Craig Murphy, IOM Regional Project Coordinator for Mixed Migration. “Staff and resources have been diverted from existing programmes to respond to the emergency. Long term planning and significant resource mobilization is needed to keep pace with the humanitarian needs on the ground in Djibouti and Somalia.”

So far Somaliland has registered a total of 1,125 arrivals from Yemen, while Puntland has received 2,285, bringing the total arrivals in Somalia to over 3,410. So far 57 per cent of the arrivals are migrants, while the remainder are refugees.

In Djibouti, over 8,900 migrants have arrived to date. Of these, the majority (4,700) are TCNs, who represent 53 per cent of arrivals.

Humanitarian agencies are struggling to cope with the growing number of arrivals. In Djibouti, a response plan was launched last week. IOM is appealing for USD 1.2 million for operations in the water and sanitation (WASH), nutrition, education, food, shelter/NFI, protection and health sectors.

For further information please contact:

T. Craig Murphy at IOM Djibouti, Tel: +254 717 711 822,  Email: cmurphy@iom.int
Feisal Muhamud at IOM Somali, Tel: +254 20 2926 412, Email: famuhamud@iom.int
Bekim Ajdini at IOM Yemen, Tel: +962 79 826 4 906,  Email: bajdini@iom.int