Description of the disaster
On 26 March 2015, the escalation of fighting between the opposition groups in Yemen resulted in the displacement of thousands of people. Up until 27 October 2015, about 2,691,464 people had been affected by the conflict (UNHCR statistics). Among them, 2,035,048 were internally displaced and 121,801 left Yemen to seek refuge in Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Oman and Saudi Arabia (UNHCR). The situation in Yemen was still dire with 82% of the population needing humanitarian aid (more than 21 million people). According to OCHA, more than 14 million people faced food insecurity, 19 million people lacked access to adequate drinking water or sanitation, 14.1 million people did not have sufficient access to health services and 32 million children were seriously under nourished. With the access to goods becoming difficult in Yemen, market prices had considerably gone up, which had worsened the situation for Yemenis. Cease fires and negotiations had been entered into repeatedly since the onset of the crisis but none of them had been successful.
Djibouti continued to receive the majority of refugees and was one of the few neighbouring countries that had opened its borders to those fleeing Yemen. IFRC released CHF 66,180 from the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) in May, 2015 to support Djibouti Red Crescent Society (DRCS) respond to the needs of refugees/returnees for a period of 3 months on first aid, water, sanitation and hygiene promotion. The DREF Emergency Plan of Action (EPoA) was however revised in June 2015 with an additional allocation of CHF 94,449 and the timeframe extended to 31 October 2015. Please refer to the operations update no. 1 to see changes in planned activities and implementation.
This DREF has been replenished by DG ECHO and Netherlands Red Cross. The major donors and partners of the DREF include the Red Cross Societies and governments of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the USA, as well as DG ECHO, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) the Medtronic and Zurich and other corporate and private donors.
The IFRC, on behalf of the Djibouti Red Crescent Society would like to extend its thanks to all partners for their generous contributions.