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Yemen’s Government Announces Major Offensive Against Houthis as Fighting Nears Taiz and Bab el-Mandeb

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Yemen’s Government Announces Major Offensive Against Houthis as Fighting Nears Taiz and Bab el-Mandeb

The announcement comes weeks after the Houthis seized the Red Sea coast, as UN agencies report mass displacement and the group claims new strikes on Saudi energy sites. YEMEN — Yemen's internationally recognized government announced a major military operation on Sunday, October 4, 2026, aimed at retaking territory held by the Houthis, weeks after a Houthi offensive in Yemen put the Iran-backed group in control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Rashad al-Alimi, head of the Presidential Leadership Council, made the announcement from Saudi Arabia and called on the international community to support the government. The Houthis have held the initiative on the ground in recent weeks, according to Reuters, and have been pushing forward near the southwestern city of Taiz. The size, objectives and...

Aid Cuts Put Refugee Classrooms at Risk as 5.8 Million Children Remain Without School

The number of refugee children out of school worldwide stood at 5.8 million in 2025, according to a new UNHCR report that warns shrinking aid budgets could shut millions more out of classrooms. The UN refugee agency says that is 44 per cent of the 13.1 million refugee children of school age. What the new UNHCR report says The annual report, titled Pathways to the Future: Education, Opportunity and Self-Reliance, was published on Friday 2 October. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Salih, who spent years as a refugee himself, said education gave him opportunities that displacement might have denied, and summed it up as "Education is protection." UNHCR is asking international partners and development agencies to safeguard education funding and to invest in the national school ...

UNHCR Says 8.3 Million Displaced People Could Lose Aid as Funding Gap Reaches $5.8 Billion

The UNHCR funding shortfall has left nearly 8.3 million refugees and other forcibly displaced or stateless people at risk of losing access to assistance this year, the United Nations refugee agency said on 29 September. UNHCR faces a gap of $5.789 billion against a 2026 requirement of $8.505 billion, and by the end of July it had received only 32% of that sum, roughly $2.7 billion. The warning comes in a 26-page report, "Protection Eroded: The Human Cost of Underfunding," published in Geneva. The 8.3 million figure is UNHCR's own estimate of people exposed to losing help, not a count of those who have already lost it. How the UNHCR funding shortfall grew Money available to the agency fell from $5.2 billion in 2024 to $3.9 billion in 2025, a drop of 24%. Reuters reported that the decl...