More than 2,000 people have landed in Djibouti this week after fleeing the uptick in fighting between Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed government, the United Nations said on Sunday.

Tens of thousands have taken flight in the wake of a week-long Houthi offensive that culminated in the group capturing the remainder of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and several strategic islands, cementing their hold on the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.

On Thursday (10 September), the group took control of the Red Sea port city of Mocha, which lies along the key waterway for ships passing from Europe to Asia.

“More than 2,000 people fleeing hostilities in Yemen have arrived on Djibouti’s shores,” the International Organization for Migration wrote on X on Sunday.

The UN body told AFP that the first arrivals landed on Thursday evening.

The small Horn of Africa country’s minister of economy and finance Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh had put the figure at about 1,400 people on Saturday.

Djibouti lies opposite Yemen across the Bab al-Mandab strait, which has become an important artery for Saudi Arabian oil exports after Iran began its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the Middle East war.

Among Africa’s least populous nations at around a million inhabitants, Djibouti is a favoured transit point for migrants leaving the continent in the hopes of reaching the oil-rich Gulf states.

According to the UN, at least 76,000 people have been displaced in Yemen by the fighting since July, with that number quadrupling in the last week as a result of the Houthi offensive.

Across its 23,000 square kilometres (8,900 square miles), Djibouti is home to military bases from the United States, China, Japan, France and Italy eyeing the Bab al-Mandab strait.