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More than 1,400 people fled Yemen for Djibouti in a single 24-hour period, officials said Saturday, as Houthi forces tightened their control over the Red Sea coastline and the strategically vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Djibouti's minister of economy and finance, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, disclosed the figure in a post on X, writing that the refugees had arrived "from Yemen in just 24 hours."
The surge adds to a rapidly worsening displacement crisis inside Yemen, where the United Nations says at least 76,000 people have been forced from their homes since July, a number that has quadrupled in the past week alone amid renewed fighting.
Houthi fighters, who are aligned with Iran and already hold a significant swath of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the western city of Hodeida, have pushed rapidly along the country's coast in recent days.
On Thursday they seized the port city of Mokha, and by Friday had tightened their grip on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and on islands and coastline stretching along the Red Sea.
The offensive began last week when Houthi fighters launched a new push against Saudi-backed government forces in areas bordering the strait.
Hundreds of people have been killed on both sides in the fighting, though a precise toll has not been released.
Djibouti, a small nation on the Horn of Africa, sits directly across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from Yemen at the point where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden.
That proximity has made it a landing point for Yemenis escaping the violence.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's busiest maritime chokepoints, links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and feeds into the Suez Canal, one of the primary routes connecting Europe and Asia.
Its significance has grown further for Saudi oil exports since the Strait of Hormuz, another critical energy corridor, was blocked by Iran, adding a new layer of urgency to the fighting over control of the Yemeni coastline.
Yemen has been gripped by civil war since 2014, when Houthi forces swept into Sanaa and prompted a Saudi-led military intervention on behalf of the internationally recognized government.
The renewed offensive along the Red Sea coast marks one of the most significant Houthi advances in recent memory, with implications for both regional stability and global shipping.
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