1 August to 22 September
Clashes and shelling that erupted along Yemen's western frontline on 3 September have displaced more than 130,000 people in 3 weeks. Nearly all of the movement was recorded after 31 August, most of it within Ta'iz and Lahj. By 21 September the Rapid Response Mechanism had assisted 61% of the displaced households, while kit stocks and the food pipeline were running short of the caseload.
Yemen's war has drastically escalated in 2026, shattering the years of relative calm that followed the 2022 UN-brokered truce. While frontline combat had settled into low-intensity attrition for several years, a series of military offensives, economic disputes and regional spillover from the broader Middle East conflict have pushed the country to its highest risk of all-out civil war since 2022, in the words of the UN Special Envoy to the Security Council on 14 August. On 3 September, intense clashes and shelling erupted along the western frontline, on the Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi fronts in western Ta'iz, and then extended into Hays, Mawza', Al Wazi'iyah and the southern Al Hodeidah coast, according to OCHA. According to IOM DTM, between 1 August and 22 September 133,494 people were displaced, 98% of them after 31 August, across 46 districts in 7 governorates.
31,482 people were newly displaced in the single week of 14 to 20 September. 67% of those displaced stayed inside their own governorate, which concentrates the pressure on a handful of receiving districts in the Ta'iz highlands and Lahj. At least 908 households recorded in the Ta'iz hub had already been displaced once and fled existing sites, some of which OCHA reports as almost entirely vacated.
By 21 September the RRM had assisted 90,600 people, WASH partners 93,240 and protection partners 80,296, counting assistance under way. The RRM has recorded assistance for 12,956 households against a planning caseload that OCHA puts at up to 80,000 households, with US$5 million of CERF funding covering 40,000 kits. WFP has reallocated 20,000 rations from the regular pipeline that serves 1.6 million people already in IPC Phase 4. Since 10 September, 533 RRM kits have been held in warehouses that partners cannot reach. The sections below set out the displacement, the civilian toll, the response and the food security situation in turn.
Chronology of Displacement
The escalation began on the west coast in June, and DTM has counted 134,550 people displaced since then. Almost all of the displacement recorded since 1 August took place after 31 August: the curve behind the timeline rises from about 40,000 on 8 September to more than 130,000 on 22 September. Select a marker to read the event.
Geography of Displacement
Ta'iz is the main governorate of origin and of destination. OCHA's analysis of the DTM dataset puts 81% of the displaced as originating in Ta'iz, 13% in Al Hodeidah and 6% in Lahj, with 6 districts of origin accounting for most of the movement: Jabal Habashi, Al Wazi'iyah, Maqbanah, Mawza', Al Ma'afir and Hays. 67% of those who moved stayed inside their governorate, and Jabal Habashi and Al Ma'afer, districts adjacent to the frontline, are also the largest hosting districts.
The 33% who crossed a governorate boundary moved mainly south and east, into Al Madaribah Wa Al Aarah and Tuban in Lahj and Al Burayqah in Aden, which together host some 36,000 people. DTM notes that the growing share of inter-governorate movements, 33% by 22 September against 32% 2 days earlier, indicates an expanding geographic footprint. Aden receives new arrivals daily, and families unable to enter Aden have relocated to the Ta'iz highlands.
Where the displaced are staying
Site type is not yet recorded for 7%, almost all in Aden. OCHA notes that people with host communities are likely under-represented.
What they say they need first
Protection services are the first need for 7%. DTM priority needs, 1 August to 20 September.
Protection of Civilians
OHCHR has verified 128 civilian casualties across 37 incidents between 1 August and 22 September, 32 killed and 96 injured, with 73 of them verified in September alone. Women and children account for more than half. The Health Cluster's surveillance, which counts all casualties reaching facilities, runs on a different basis: 3,672 since 6 August and 680 in the week of 13 to 18 September, 164 of them deaths. The two figures measure different things and are not combined here.
PRISM's protection risk monitoring documented 12 incidents in Yemen between 1 and 22 September, each traced to a source, on the ACAPS taxonomy PRISM uses for its protection register. They include a Houthi missile strike on civilians south of Ta'iz city on 5 September; an air strike on a prison in al-Hazm that the Houthi-run Health Ministry attributed to Saudi Arabia, which had not commented; ambulances targeted at the Kahbub front on 18 September; and a Saudi strike on Mocha on 22 September, as reported by the Houthi-affiliated Saba agency through AFP. They also record the services disrupted: 243 schools closed, 26 UNICEF-supported health facilities affected, and reproductive health care cut off for more than 30,000 women.
| Date | Risk category | What PRISM documented |
|---|---|---|
| 5 Sep | R02 Attacks on civilians | On 5 September, a Houthi missile strike targeted a gathering of civilians on the Heijah al-Abd road south of Taiz city, killing at least 4 civilians and injuring 9 others, according to Yemen's state-run Saba news agency. Al Jazeera |
| 7 Sep | R02 Attacks on civilians | On 7 September, an air strike hit the Central Corrective Facility in al-Hazm, Al Jawf governorate, on the Yemeni side of the border with Saudi Arabia. Al Jazeera |
| 9 Sep | R02 Attacks on civilians | Between 1 and 9 September 2026, OHCHR verified 14 civilian casualties across 8 incidents in Ta'iz and Al Hodeidah, including 2 children killed, with women and children among those injured. OCHA reported that 4 additional incidents in Ta'iz, Lahj, Marib and Al Jawf remained under verification and were not included in the verified figures. OCHA |
| 9 Sep | R05 Denial of services and access | OCHA reported that access along Yemen's west coast deteriorated on 9 September 2026. Movement was temporarily suspended between Al Makha, Al Khukhah and Hays, and between Aden and Al Makha; movement within the affected towns was highly restricted, no movement permits were issued and partner staff worked from home. OCHA |
| 14 Sep | R15 Displacement and movement | IOM reported on 14 September 2026 that 93,864 individuals had been newly displaced across Yemen, driven by ongoing conflict. IOM |
| 16 Sep | R02 Attacks on civilians | UNICEF reported on 16 September that since 3 September at least 9 children had been reported killed and 12 injured in Yemen, while 3 other children were reported missing following an attack on the road from Yemen's western coast to Aden. UNICEF |
| 16 Sep | R05 Denial of services and access | UNICEF reported on 16 September that renewed hostilities across Yemen were cutting children off from essential services. It recorded that 243 schools had closed or suspended learning, affecting more than 137,000 students, and that 26 UNICEF-supported health facilities had had services disrupted. UNICEF |
| 18 Sep | R15 Displacement and movement | UNHCR reported on 18 September that nearly 3,000 people had arrived in Djibouti in less than a week by making the sea crossing across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as escalating violence forced families to flee Yemen. More than half of the Yemeni refugees crossing to Djibouti were women and children. UNHCR |
| 20 Sep | R02 Attacks on civilians | The Health Cluster and WHO reported that on 18 September ambulances were targeted at the Kahbub front in Lahj, killing an ambulance driver and an emergency medical responder. Health Cluster and WHO |
| 21 Sep | R05 Denial of services and access | UNFPA reported on 21 September that escalating violence along Yemen's western coast and the southern Ta'iz frontlines was severing access to reproductive health care and protection services for more than 30,000 women of reproductive age. UNFPA |
| 21 Sep | R15 Displacement and movement | IOM reported that 129,438 people, or 21,573 households, had been displaced across 7 governorates in Yemen as families fled escalating insecurity. Ta'iz governorate hosted the most displaced people with 73,494, followed by Lahj with 33,828, Aden with 8,946, Al Hodeidah with 8,244, Abyan with 3,324, Hadramawt with 1,008 and Ma'rib with 594. IOM |
| 22 Sep | R02 Attacks on civilians | Naharnet, citing Agence France-Presse, reported on 22 September that Yemen's Houthis said Saudi Arabia had carried out a deadly strike on a key port city that day. The Houthi-affiliated Saba news agency reported 6 civilians including 2 children killed in the port city of Mocha. Naharnet |
Women and girls
The GBV Working Group reports that 10 partners reached at least 1,502 women, girls and survivors between 3 and 15 September, increasingly by phone and WhatsApp as staff themselves were displaced: 17 by the Working Group's count, 23 by the Protection Cluster's. 3 women and girls safe spaces closed for access reasons on top of a 72% closure rate that funding cuts had already imposed. Partners hold no dignity kits and need at least 6,750. UNFPA estimates 23,500 women of reproductive age and 2,100 pregnant women among the newly displaced, 420 of whom need comprehensive emergency obstetric care in districts where, as in Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi, no functioning facility offers it.
Humanitarian Response
Partners have moved from registration to distribution in the Ta'iz highlands and on the west coast, while the Aden hub remains largely at the verification stage. OCHA's cluster table separates completed assistance from assistance under way: WASH has completed 5,920 households of 13,320 registered, protection 1,942 of 11,514, cash 3,017 of 7,272. Food security partners have completed one-off distributions for 6,882 households, about three quarters of the RRM-verified caseload, and most of those have received only 1 of the 3 cycles the second-line response requires.
The constraints on the response are set out in the same update, and WFP's country brief adds the institutional dimension: the seizure of the UN hub in Al Makha housing WFP offices, breached warehouses, 49 food distribution points and 85 health centres made inaccessible, and 38 WFP staff with 35 other UN colleagues still detained in areas under the Sana'a-based authorities, where all WFP activities remain suspended under the Secretary-General's pause.
| Constraint | What the sources record |
|---|---|
| Roads | The main road to Maqbanah is impassable and movements depend on a single route through Jabal Habashi; the Ta'iz to Al Makha road is heavily constrained; Al Makha seaport is damaged with operations suspended. |
| Insecurity | Movements into several west coast locations suspended since 10 September, 533 RRM kits unreachable; UN operations on the west coast and in the northern governorates under a humanitarian pause. |
| Interference | Armed groups reportedly entered humanitarian compounds in Al Makha, seizing vehicles and interfering with distributions; fighting has approached the road linking Ta'iz with Aden. |
| Control changes | Unclear operational requirements from controlling authorities in coastal districts of Al Hodeidah and Ta'iz where control has recently shifted. |
| Communications | Outages in Ta'iz delay verification, assistance tracking and cash collection; lengthy customs procedures slow relief supplies; the Logistics Cluster works through 2 common hubs. |
| Data | No DTM access to Al Hodeidah since 9 September; more than half of alerted households in Lahj and most in Abyan still await verification. |
Food Security and Prices
The displacement is taking place in a food crisis that the IPC had already mapped. For June to September 2026, the IPC analysis of areas under Government of Yemen control projected 5.36 million people in Phase 3 or above, 51% of the 10.5 million analysed, with 1.6 million in Phase 4. The October to December projection holds the total at 5.37 million and moves 1.79 million into Phase 4. Every one of the governorates now receiving displaced people was already at or above half its population in crisis: Ta'iz 53%, Lahj 53%, Aden 49%, Abyan 53%.
WFP reports household food consumption in GoY areas worsening for a fifth consecutive month in August, with 37% of households in severe deprivation and every governorate above the 20% threshold it calls very high. Its response to the displacement has been to reach 76,000 newly displaced people through the RRM and partners, pre-position 15,000 ready-to-eat kits for about 105,000 more, and reallocate 20,000 rations from the seventh targeted emergency food assistance cycle, enough for 140,000 people. Those rations were budgeted for the 1.7 million people the regular cycle targets, and WFP states that the regular pipeline must be replenished to avoid gaps for existing Phase 4 caseloads.
Market prices show the same pressure. Staple prices in Ta'iz, Lahj and Aden held within 6% across the year to August 2026, but diesel rose from about YER 1,300 a litre in February to YER 2,400 in Ta'iz by August, a rise of 85%, with Lahj and Aden up by half. Fuel moves water trucks, ambulances and food deliveries, and WFP attributes the price pressure to disrupted trade routes and fuel supply on the west coast. El Niño, which NOAA rates at more than 90% likely to be very strong this winter in the outlook PRISM carries, is expected to add climate shocks and price volatility on top.
Country Context
The escalation is taking place in one of the world's least developed countries. UN official statistics preserved by PRISM put Yemen's Human Development Index at 0.470 in 2023, gross national income per capita at PPP $1,018, and 47.4% of children under 5 stunted in 2024. Yemen has no accredited national human rights institution and is not party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. OCHA FTS as read on PRISM on 25 September shows the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 28.2% funded, US$611 million of US$2.16 billion, after 28% in 2025 and 56% in 2024.
| Plan year | Requirements | Funded | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | US$3.85B | US$2.43B | 63% |
| 2022 | US$4.27B | US$2.31B | 54% |
| 2023 | US$4.34B | US$1.78B | 41% |
| 2024 | US$2.71B | US$1.52B | 56% |
| 2025 | US$2.48B | US$0.69B | 28% |
| 2026 | US$2.16B | US$0.61B | 28.2% |
- OCHA, Yemen Situation Update No. 3, 21 September 2026
- IOM DTM, Displacement Caused by Escalation in the West Coast, Update #11, 23 September 2026
- UNFPA, Hostilities in Yemen Flash Update, 9 to 14 September 2026
- GBV Working Group, Response Update for the current emergency, September 2026
- WFP, Yemen Country Brief #8, September 2026
- OCHA HDX HAPI data for Yemen
Yemen is tracked live on PRISM. Explore its humanitarian profile, updated from source: funding, displacement, food security, climate, protection risks and the UN development and protection baselines.
"I gave birth 11 days ago, but since we were displaced, I have not been able to access enough nutritious food to support myself and breastfeed my newborn. We left our home with almost nothing."
— S.G., displaced mother, quoted in the GBV Working Group update, September 2026