Yemenis flee across Red Sea as Houthis and Saudi-backed forces escalate war

Yemenis flee across Red Sea as Houthis and Saudi-backed forces escalate war

Ibrahim Issa, 50, comes from the Yemeni coastal town of Dhubab, which lies directly on the front line of the conflict between Yemen’s Houthis and the Saudi-backed pro-government forces opposing them.

Now he is seated with his family on a tarpaulin laid over a sandy floor inside a huge open-sided warehouse at Markazi camp in Obock, northern Djibouti. The site is crowded with Yemeni families who have escaped by boat across the narrow Bab al-Mandab strait.

After crossing the sea, the refugees have continued by truck and on foot to reach the camp, which is run jointly by the government and the UN.

"How could I just sit there when my kids are screaming and shaking in terror?" says Ibrahim Issa. "When the sound of the planes start, and the kids hear the planes, they begin shouting and screaming. As parents it is our responsibility, what can you do when you see this? That is why we fled, to save them."

Ibrahim Issa escaped on his fishing boat with family and several goats

As a fisherman, Ibrahim Issa already had a boat big enough to carry his family out of Yemen.

He even brought several of the family’s goats, which can now be seen grazing on scraps nearby among discarded cooking gas canisters and empty plastic bottles. Some families have managed to bring small bundles of belongings from Yemen — one family has even arrived with a "jeraak", a tall metal shisha pipe — while others have come exhausted, wearing only the clothes they left in.

In just the past few days, more than 3,000 refugees have arrived here from Yemen, many of them entire families. The UN estimates that overall, more than 120,000 Yemenis have been displaced by the sudden escalation in fighting along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

This month, the Houthis, who had already taken control of most of Yemen’s populated areas years ago, made a rapid push down the coast toward Bab al-Mandab, the narrow maritime chokepoint where the southern Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean.

Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen’s internationally recognised UN-recognised government, has answered with hundreds of air strikes across the flat coastal plain where the Houthis are now entrenched. The Houthis have also fired hundreds of drones and missiles at cities and infrastructure in south-western Saudi Arabia.

"We don't care which side it is that's attacking," was the message I heard clearly in Arabic from everyone I spoke to here. "It's the bombs falling all around us that have caused us to flee."

Djibouti, a small former French colony just across the water from Yemen, has made clear that it has no intention of becoming involved in the war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government.

Even so, Djibouti is one of Africa’s most militarised countries. Since 2003, the US has operated a large multinational base here, Camp Lemonnier, once home to the French Foreign Legion. China also has a major base here, its largest military presence on the Indian Ocean and recently expanded.

Back at Markazi camp, one of the people I spoke with is Qassim Abraham Abssy. A former fisherman, his identity card says he is 100 years old.

"What led us to come here?" he asks rhetorically.

"It was the planes. The sounds of the planes, boom! That's what made us flee, for the sake of our children. It burns ours hearts. We don't know which side they are from. They are bombing everywhere, because the Houthis are everywhere, in the mountains, in the roads. A plane comes, bombs everywhere."

More than 120,000 Yemenis are estimated to have been displaced by the sudden surge in fighting

Outside in the scorching 37C heat, near the neat rows of tents provided by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, I met Mohammed Abdullarim from Aden, a 63-year-old former tour guide old enough to have been born when Aden was still a British protectorate.

Unlike the recent arrivals, Mohammed has been here since 2015. He fled to Djibouti soon after fighting first broke out between the Houthis and the government of the now-ousted President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

He has remained at the camp ever since, but as we were speaking, the sorrow over what is happening to his country suddenly overwhelmed him and he turned away, choking back tears.

"Most of the people here are in the worst condition, inside the tents here. I am very touched, I'm crying for these people, for my people, for their suffering. I want our voices to be heard by the NGOs and the Djibouti government. And I'm thankful to them for accepting us."

How long they will remain here depends, of course, on the fighting. Yemen has been devastated by a brutal civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions since 2014.

A fragile UN-brokered 2022 truce between the Saudis and the Houthis has collapsed dramatically in recent months, with both sides exchanging missiles, drones and air strikes.

"We are willing to go back in peace if peace returns to our country," says Aisha Abdulkadir Mohammed

Yemen’s war may seem distant to most people, but the impact of choking off Saudi Arabia’s oil exports through the Bab al-Mandab strait is widely known. Yet as always, it is the human toll that often goes unnoticed.

Sitting beside his wife on their tarpaulin amid the noise all around them, fisherman Qassim Abssy is reluctant to leave the safety of Djibouti: "If the war continues then we're not going back because we have peace here."

His wife, Aisha Abdulkadir Mohammed, agrees. "We are willing to go back in peace if peace returns to our country, and we are praying to God that peace does return. All we need is peace, even for our children's future, they get safety first, then food, water and an education.

"As you see we just fled with our clothes, and left everything behind, because [in Yemen] there is no peace."