76,000 families flee Yemen’s Al-Hudaydah since June: UN

More than 76,000 families have fled Yemen's western Al-Hudaydah province since June amid ongoing fighting between Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led military coalition, a UN humanitarian agency said Thursday.

According to a report released this week by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 76,512 families have fled Al-Hudaydah since June -- either to other provinces of Yemen or to safer areas of Al-Hudaydah.

Fighting has intensified in the province since early September, especially, according to the report, in the Kilometer 16 area; near the airport; and along the Red Sea coast.

Both the Salif and Al-Hudaydah seaports, meanwhile, remain operational, since they are both "necessary for the transfer of food and other humanitarian supplies to capital Sanaa and areas of northern Yemen", the report reads.

Impoverished Yemen has been wracked by violence since 2014, when Shia Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including capital Sanaa and Al-Hudaydah.

The conflict escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-Arab allies launched a massive air campaign in Yemen aimed at rolling back Houthi gains and shoring up the country's pro-Saudi government.

The violence has devastated Yemen's basic infrastructure, including its health and sanitation systems, prompting the UN to describe the situation as "one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times".