seized<\/a> the strategic Yemeni island of Mayyun, also known as Perim, in the Bab al-Mandeb strait, Djibouti\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on September 11 it was following developments there \u201cwith increased attention\u201d, while backing efforts to ease tensions and reach a political solution in Yemen.<\/p>\nDjibouti\u2019s Finance Minister Ilyas Dawaleh documented the accelerating arrivals in a series of posts on X, reporting about 500 people by September 11, 1,400 the following day and more than 2,000 by that evening.<\/p>\n
By September 13, he wrote that the pace was becoming \u201cincreasingly difficult for our country\u201d.<\/p>\n
As arrivals increased, Djibouti\u2019s coastguard, navy, army and health services were deployed to rescue people stranded at sea and receive them ashore, providing food and first aid at sites including Obock and the smaller coastal post of Khor Angar.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Prime Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed travelled to Obock to meet officials from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme and the IOM.<\/p>\n
Djiboutian authorities said they were preparing to receive as many as 10,000 people if the pace continued.<\/p>\n
The pressure on Djibouti also has implications beyond the humanitarian response. The Bab al-Mandeb is one of the world\u2019s most important shipping corridors, with an estimated one in eight tonnes of global seaborne trade passing through it each day.<\/p>\n
Djibouti\u2019s location has also made it a hub for foreign militaries. The United States, China, France, Japan and Italy all operate bases in the country, several within a few miles of one another, in part because of the importance of protecting shipping through the increasingly contested waterway.<\/p>\n
\u201cDjibouti, like many countries, depends heavily on international trade and the safety and security of sea lanes,\u201d said Aden Omar Abdillahi, director of the Djibouti-based Institute of Political and Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this conflict impacts maritime security in the way some fear, it will have a massive impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djibouti has spent two decades building its role as a stable base for foreign governments and shipping interests in an unstable region. The latest crisis puts further pressure on that role as instability around the Red Sea deepens.<\/p>\n
In a separate post on X, Dawaleh warned that the US-Israel war on Iran, which has disrupted traffic through the critical Strait of Hormuz waterway, is already deepening uncertainty for smaller economies such as Djibouti\u2019s.<\/p>\n
In 2015, more than 15,700 Yemenis arrived after the war escalated, according to IOM and Djiboutian government figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve received refugees for decades from across the region,\u201d Abdillahi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to Yemen, many people settled here during the first big phase of the fighting in 2015, and we\u2019ve got experience managing this. Yemenis are also not distant foreigners; there are Yemeni communities who have been here for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djibouti already hosts more than 36,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers, according to UNHCR\u2019s March figures. Most are from Somalia, Ethiopia and Yemen.<\/p>\n
The Markazi camp near Obock, which received thousands of Yemenis during the earlier exodus a decade ago, is again being used to accommodate new arrivals. It is believed to be able to accommodate around 5,000 people, with the population already there mainly from Yemen and Eritrea.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is at this site that we\u2019re trying to organise and that the authorities are trying to organise all the support in terms of housing, shelter and meals,\u201d IOM\u2019s Coissac told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
He added that many of the latest arrivals were being accommodated there, while others had been taken in by residents of Obock. \u201cThe generosity of the Obock population has been huge,\u201d Coissac said.<\/p>\n
Desamours, UNHCR\u2019s representative in Djibouti, told Al Jazeera that some of those who had arrived were asking authorities for permission to return temporarily to Yemen to bring vulnerable relatives back with them.<\/p>\n
In a post on X on September 12, Dawaleh wrote that the UNHCR and other UN agencies on the ground \u201cappear to be lacking resources to receive and protect these vulnerable people with dignity\u201d, and urged the international community to \u201cstand with us urgently\u201d.<\/p>\n
A person familiar with the humanitarian response in the region said authorities in Puntland and Somaliland, two self-governing regions of Somalia across the Gulf of Aden, had already asked UN agencies for help preparing for larger numbers.<\/p>\n
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.<\/p>\n
Both regions could see arrivals at their own port towns, Bosaso and Berbera, if the exodus continues.<\/p>\n
The preparations come as humanitarian organisations are already facing deep funding pressures<\/a> following sharp reductions in aid from the United States and, more recently, the United Kingdom.<\/p>\nCoissac said many of those arriving were likely to remain in Djibouti rather than move on quickly. \u201cThe number of people arriving is large,\u201d he said, \u201cand if it continues at this rate, we\u2019ll not be able to manage\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 3,400 people fleeing renewed fighting in Yemen have landed along Djibouti\u2019s northern coast, according to Djiboutian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1911,201246,42,8954,47,4432,43,13838,40,38,41,39,2893],"class_list":["post-617150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-africa","tag-djibouti","tag-headlines","tag-houthis","tag-middle-east","tag-migration","tag-news","tag-refugees","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}