UN projects 230,000 displaced in Yemen as civilians flee bombing across the Red Sea

More than 130,000 people have been displaced by the renewed fighting along Yemen's Red Sea coast, and the UN refugee agency expects that number to reach 230,000 in the coming months, spokesperson Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva. The agency also projects 10,000 refugees crossing into Djibouti.

About 3,000 Yemenis have already reached Markazi camp in Obock, northern Djibouti, arriving by boat across the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Families came with what they could carry — bundles of clothes, a shisha pipe, a few goats. One man, Ibrahim Issa, a fisherman from the coastal town of Dhubab, said he fled because his children screamed and shook at the sound of planes. A 100-year-old man, Qassim Abssy, said the same: "It was the planes."

Civilians at the camp said they did not know which side was bombing them and did not care. "It's the bombs falling all around us that have caused us to flee," one told the BBC.

Fighting over the past two days killed 154 people, according to military sources on both sides cited by Agence France-Presse. Houthi sources said 118 were killed by Saudi strikes, clashes, and artillery; government sources said 36 of their soldiers died.