The ongoing round of military escalation in Yemen has left hundreds of civilians dead or wounded and forced tens of thousands to flee, amid UN warnings that food security could collapse completely. The number of internally displaced people is nearing 5 million, as the crisis has for years been classified by the UN as one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.
The current escalation has entered its fourth month, marking one of the fiercest rounds of fighting since the war began 12 years ago. Clashes between government forces and the Ansar Allah Houthi group are taking place on several fronts, after nearly 4 years of relative calm along the front lines, while UN, international and regional efforts have failed to reach a political settlement to the crisis.
Initial casualty toll and territorial control
The Yemeni government said 610 civilians had been killed or injured since the latest escalation began, intensifying during September 2026. Human Rights Minister Mishdal Mohammed Omar said in a speech to the 63rd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the initial toll from the Houthi escalation stood at more than 250 civilian deaths and about 360 injured people by 30 September.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on 24 September that the escalation in Yemen, since the Houthis launched a new wave of attacks in early August, had left at least 125 civilians dead or wounded.
The resumption of clashes between government forces and the Houthis led tens of thousands of residents to flee, particularly after the group took control on 10 September of Hays and Al Khokha, the last strongholds of the Yemeni government in Hudaydah governorate. The takeover also included 4 districts in Taiz governorate, most notably the city of Mokha, extending to the Bab al-Mandab area.
Lahj governorate ranked second, hosting 7,179 families comprising 50,253 individuals in 9 districts. In the interim capital, Aden, the unit recorded the arrival of 3,741 families comprising 17,782 individuals, distributed across the governorate's 8 districts. Abyan governorate received 2,097 families with a total of 14,679 people, living in camps and settlements in the districts of Khanfir and Zinjibar.
The number of registered families in Hudaydah governorate reached 1,471, comprising 10,297 individuals in the districts of Hays and Al Khokha. The unit found indications that a recent secondary displacement wave had begun among these families towards Aden, saying it was tracking their movements and assessing their new needs.
The remaining displaced families were distributed across other governorates: 412 families in Marib, 240 in Al Dhale'e, 214 in Hadramawt, 124 in Al Mahrah and 116 in Shabwa. In a separate estimate, the UN said more than 152,000 people had been displaced by the latest escalation, while more than 3,700 refugees had fled Yemen towards Djibouti in the recent period.
Displacement nearing 5 million people
The number of internally displaced people before this round of clashes was estimated at about 4.8 million, bringing the total close to 5 million. The UN World Food Programme warned on Friday that continued fighting was threatening to cause food security to collapse completely in Yemen.
The programme called on the international community to double its efforts to avert a bleak future if conditions continued along their current path. Matthew Hollingworth, the WFP assistant executive director for operations, told journalists in Geneva via video link from Rome that hunger was worsening rapidly in Yemen and that the impact of the latest wave of insecurity on food conditions threatened extremely serious consequences.
Monitoring recently conducted by the programme in areas it was able to access showed that 74% of families had been unable to meet their basic food needs. This was the highest level recorded by the programme during 2026. Programme data indicate that 18.3 million people across Yemen face acute food insecurity.
About 2.2 million children under the age of 5 also suffer from acute malnutrition, including 500,000 children with severe acute malnutrition, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition. The programme said the conflict and rising prices were placing additional restrictions on people's ability to obtain food.
The price of wheat flour rose by 10% over two weeks in parts of Taiz governorate, which hosts the largest proportion of newly displaced people, while traders estimated that available wheat stocks would cover demand for only 2 months. Hollingworth said field teams from the programme had observed families arriving in Lahj and Taiz governorates after going for days without food or water.
He said the programme had managed to provide assistance to more than 70,000 people in displacement areas in the two governorates, but was facing increasing difficulty delivering food to areas near the front lines. He added that humanitarian workers could no longer reach about 350,000 people who had previously received assistance, after the areas where they lived came under the control of Houthi de facto authorities.
Hollingworth described the situation in Yemen as one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, warning that the outlook would grow darker unless the world acted soon to help Yemenis. The World Food Programme needs 109 million US dollars to fund its emergency response operations.
It also needs 158 million US dollars to continue its regular programmes providing food, cash assistance, nutrition services and school meals until March 2027. The funding gap comes as the temporary suspension of operations by UN agencies, funds and programmes in areas under Houthi control continues.
Worsening hunger and the humanitarian response gap
This comes as the group continues to detain 73 UN staff members, including 38 working for the World Food Programme. Humanitarian, political and economic affairs researcher Ehab Al Qurashi said food security in Yemen had already been deteriorating and had reached extremely dangerous levels before the current escalation began.
Al Qurashi added that pre-escalation estimates indicated that more than 20 million Yemenis were in Phase 4, which precedes the declaration of famine. He said several districts and areas had effectively entered Phase 5 of the food security classification system, noting that deaths from famine had been recorded in recent months.
The researcher described organisations' interventions to assist those affected by the new displacement wave as extremely weak. He said the continuation of military operations was worsening the humanitarian situation alongside Yemen's deteriorating economy, while declining contributions from international donors had constrained organisations' ability to respond to the needs of displaced people.
He said the expanding humanitarian disaster and declining aid had created a major gap between needs and the available response. He called on UN and international organisations, along with governments active in relief work, to act to increase funding allocated to Yemen. Al Qurashi said humanitarian agencies and organisations needed to reassure donors by improving transparency and issuing clear reports to measure the impact of their programmes.
He attributed part of the funding decline to weak confidence in organisations, many of which he said had faced accusations of corruption and alignment with the Houthis in recent years. He noted that the extension of the escalation to the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, including the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab, had affected supply chains.
He said Yemen was among the countries most affected by these disruptions because of its heavy reliance on imports. He added that commodity prices were also being affected by higher government customs duties at land crossings, as well as the collection of additional fees at Houthi military checkpoints on goods coming from government-controlled areas.
Rising food costs and a falling currency value
According to Al Qurashi, the food basket consumed by Yemenis in 2015 cost about 50,000 Yemeni rials, equivalent to nearly 233 US dollars at the time. Today, the cost of the basket exceeds 500,000 rials, or about 320 US dollars, amid stagnant incomes, halted salaries, rising prices and the continuing economic collapse.
The US dollar was worth 214 Yemeni rials in 2015, while its current rate has reached 1,560 rials in government-controlled areas. This decline in the currency's value has been accompanied by a major increase in the prices of basic necessities, without a corresponding improvement in people's incomes.
Al Qurashi stressed the need for the Yemeni government to present regional and international communities with a clear picture of the scale of the crisis and to maintain credibility when presenting figures, while preparing urgent humanitarian response plans. He said Yemen still needed food baskets and immediate life-saving assistance.
He called on the government to ask donor countries, particularly the Gulf states, to provide urgent aid, as well as the necessary facilitation for organisations to carry out their relief operations.
