YEMEN: Conditions deteriorate for trapped Saada IDPs

Photo: Adel Yahya/IRIN

Clashes between government troops and Houthi rebels in northern Yemen are putting the lives of IDPs at risk

SANAA, 24 September 2009 (IRIN) - The humanitarian situation in Saada Governorate, northern Yemen, is "alarming", according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The latest round of clashes between government troops and Houthi-led Shia rebels began on 12 August and was continuing despite a government-declared ceasefire on 20 September.

IDPs [internally displaced persons] stranded in Saada city and the northern Baqim area in Saada Governorate (55km northwest of Saada City and 20km from Saudi border) face a real crisis. Over the past few weeks most IDPs have been inaccessible to aid workers because of the fighting which has made roads impassable, according to UNHCR spokesperson Laure Chedrawi.

"We continue contacting the governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia on opening a Saudi aid route but haven't got the required security clearances to dispatch essential relief items to those trapped IDPs," she told IRIN on 23 September. "There are 15,000-30,000 IDPs in Baqim and their needs are compounded due to inaccessibility."

A UNHCR mission to the Saudi-Yemeni border discovered that in the Baqim area hundreds of families - including pregnant women, children and elders - are currently living in schools or even in the open, on the sides of roads, and under bridges, with dwindling food and water reserves, said a UNHCR statement (summary) on 22 September.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) chief communications and information officer in Yemen, Naseem Ur-Rehman, said whilst three out of four IDP camps in the Saada and Amran governorates had been accessed by local NGOs who get supplies from international aid agencies, UNICEF had only had access to one IDP camp (the only one) in neighbouring Hajja Governorate.

Photo: Adel Yahya/IRIN

In Khaiwan camp in Amran, children displaced by the conflict lack basic necessities

Another ceasefire fails

The 20 September ceasefire was broken just hours after being announced, according to Chedrawi. It is the second failed ceasefire in less than a month.

The ICRC's Amacher appealed to both sides to avoid civilian targets. "International humanitarian law stipulates that conflicting parties must differentiate between civilians and civilian property, on the one hand, and fighters and military targets, on the other," he said.

The ICRC has registered up to 30,000 IDPs in this latest round of fighting and offered essential assistance including food, drinking water and health services in the three camps in Saada Governorate - al-Ehsaa, Sam and al-Talh - according to Amacher.

Since June 2004, intermittent clashes between the army and rebels in Saada and Amran governorates have resulted in the displacement of an estimated 150,000 IDPs, many of them for the second or the third time, according to UN agencies.

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