MSF Yemen: thousands displaced by fighting lack access to healthcare

29 September 2026: Displaced families from the West Coast of Yemen face barriers to healthcare in Aden and Lahj.

Recent fighting along Yemen’s West Coast has displaced more than 134,000 people since June. In Aden and Lahj, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile teams are visiting four sites hosting displaced people, providing medical consultations, rapid tests, vaccinations, malnutrition screening, sexual and reproductive healthcare and referrals. ​

On the night of 10 September, Anwar Abdullah, 29, a father of six, says fighting broke out near his home in Hodeidah governorate. He left with his wife and children, travelled towards Mocha, and then continued to Aden. "We didn’t know what was happening at first. Then we realised there was fighting,” says Anwar. “I took my children and my wife and we came to Aden. We left everything behind.” The family is now staying at the Koud Othmani site in Sheikh Othman district, in northern Aden. They live in a temporary shelter and cook with firewood beside it because they lack basic cooking equipment.

Anwar’s family is among thousands of people who have arrived in Aden during the latest displacement. By 22 September, the International Organization for Migration had recorded 134,550 people displaced since the escalation began in June, including 10,920 people in Aden. ​

Distance and cost make healthcare harder to reach

The four sites currently visited by MSF were already hosting around 6,500 displaced people before the latest arrivals. In some sites, the population has since doubled. The sites are around four to 10 kilometres from health facilities. With fuel shortages and higher fuel prices, the cost of transport, as well as medicines, is often beyond what families can afford.

“We are seeing sick children, pregnant women who don’t have access to healthcare, people with wounds, and older people who need medical services but have difficulty reaching them,” says Sara Ghanim, MSF Mobile Health Activity Manager in Aden.

MSF teams are seeing wounds and injuries, malnutrition, fever, diarrhoea, and untreated infectious and non-communicable diseases. They have also seen pregnant women who have received no antenatal care, severely malnourished children, and children who are not fully vaccinated.

Bringing healthcare closer

During the first week of the mobile response, MSF teams saw 427 patients across four sites in Dar Saad and Sheikh Othman districts in Aden and Tuban district in Lahj. Most patients were women and children, and around 40 per cent had been newly displaced by the latest escalation in Taiz and along the West Coast. The mobile teams provide medical consultations; rapid testing, including haemoglobin, blood sugar, malaria, dengue and urine tests; routine vaccinations; malnutrition screening; pregnancy testing and family planning; and referrals when patients need further care.

“We are seeing huge pressure on a health system that is already collapsing and has faced many challenges for years,” says Ghanim.

MSF continues to assess sites hosting displaced people and is ready to scale up its response if health needs increase as displacement continues. Alongside the mobile response, since April MSF has been supporting primary healthcare at Al Farsha in rural Lahj and Al Basateen in Aden. The catchment areas of both facilities include places where displaced people are living, both in sites and within host communities.

-ENDS-