Fourteen hundred Yemenis cross to Djibouti in a single day
Djibouti’s finance minister gave the figure as Houthi fighters tightened their hold on the Bab al-Mandeb strait. The IOM says at least 46,000 people have been displaced inside Yemen since fighting escalated last week.
About 1,400 people fled Yemen for Djibouti in a 24-hour period, the country's economy and finance minister said on Saturday, as Houthi fighters tightened their grip on the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
"1,400 refugees arrived in Djibouti from Yemen in just 24 hours," Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh wrote on X.
The crossing
In a separate post on Friday, the minister said 500 refugees had arrived in the coastal city of Obock, among them women and children, after being rescued at sea when their boats ran out of fuel crossing the Bab al-Mandeb.
Obock sits about 20 kilometres across the water from the Yemeni coast, and has for several years been a preferred arrival point for people leaving Yemen.
The same strait carries traffic in the opposite direction: migrants from the Horn of Africa transit through Yemen on their way to Gulf countries.
What the agencies say
Safiya Ibrahim, humanitarian response coordinator for the International Organization for Migration, told AFP that "vulnerable groups such as women and children have reached the shores of Obock, with more expected in the coming days".
The IOM warned on Friday that at least 46,000 people had been displaced inside Yemen since fighting escalated the previous week.
Amy Pope, the organisation's director general, described what that displacement looks like for the people caught in it. "Families are being forced to flee for the second or third time in this conflict, with almost nothing left," she said.
She added: "As fighting spreads, reaching people with lifesaving assistance is becoming harder. We urgently need safe, unimpeded access."
The strait
The Bab al-Mandeb is the southern entrance to the Red Sea, and the Houthis' advance along Yemen's coast has brought them to it. The movement seized the port of Mocha earlier this month.
The people crossing to Obock are leaving a coastline that is now contested, in small boats, across a shipping lane that has been the subject of naval activity for months.
Djibouti's position
Djibouti already hosts tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, according to United Nations Refugee Agency figures from March 2026.
A country of that size receiving 1,400 people in a day, on top of an existing population, is the part of this the minister's posts are drawing attention to.
What the numbers describe
The 46,000 displaced figure is internal to Yemen and covers the period since fighting escalated last week. The 1,400 is a single day's arrivals in one neighbouring country.
Neither figure is a total for the conflict. They are both measures of the past week.
