Desperate Yemenis fleeing Houthi advance flood overwhelmed Aden

With his 11 children and worldly possessions crammed into a small pick-up truck, Saddam Ali fled the advancing Houthis for Yemen's port city of Aden, a place already overwhelmed by previous waves of displaced people.

Like millions of other Yemenis, caught out by the speed of the anti-government group's rapid gains, he left home in a hurry without knowing where he might find refuge.

Once in Aden, the temporary seat of the internationally recognised government, "we ended up on the streets", he said.

"We couldn't find water, nor food, all while it's extremely hot," he told AFP under the blazing sun.

The port city, whose old town is nestled in an extinct volcano, has functioned as a provisional capital since the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, early in Yemen's civil war.

Since then, Aden's population has doubled as more and more Yemenis flee zones controlled by the Iran-backed group searching for security and work.

Aden has also become a landing zone for large numbers of irregular migrants from the Horn of Africa, who hope to reach the wealthy Gulf states but more often find themselves trapped in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country.

In 2025, the city was already home to 755,000 officially registered displaced persons, out of a population of 3.5 million, according to the social affairs ministry.

This newest wave, sparked by the Houthi takeover of Yemen's Red Sea coast, is expected to further strain already struggling infrastructure and public services.

The country as a whole, meanwhile, continues to suffer one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

The UN warned last year that 17 million people in Yemen were struggling to eat and a further million faced extreme hunger.

- 'Judgement Day' -

Saddam Ali, from Al-Waziyah in Taiz province, around 140 kilometres (85 miles) northwest of Aden, said he hadn't found a single free house in the city.

"Not even a shelter," he said.

Abdulali al-Rajihi, meanwhile, fled the historic Red Sea port of Mocha, which fell to the Houthis on Thursday.

"They told us: 'Leave, scatter, you have half an hour'. What can you do in half an hour?" he said.

"We fled wearing the clothes on our backs. And we took our children, as much as we could manage."

Numerous inhabitants of the small city, which once played a key role in the coffee trade and gives its name to the eponymous drink, were caught off-guard by the Houthi advance and described scenes of panic.

"I mean, if you could see the scene, the condition of the children and women, and the elderly, if you could see the scene, and the horrors that we witnessed. It was as if it were Judgement Day," said Rajihi.

The war in Yemen, frozen by a ceasefire since 2022, sparked back into life in July.

The resumption of the war has displaced at least 76,000 people already, the UN's International Migration Organization said on Saturday, with the figure quadrupling over the past week.

It said it was providing support but warned that "needs are far outpacing what we can deliver".

"The situation is deteriorating by the day. Displacement figures are expected to rise further in the coming days."