More than 90% of internally displaced people in Yemen return home

The UN humanitarian agency said that hundreds of thousands of the Yemeni people who were forced to flee the southern province of Abyan have gone back home, a UN spokesman told reporters here on Monday. "The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that more than 90 per cent of the internally displaced people from Abyan, in Yemen, have returned to their homes," said Martin Nesirky, spokesperson for UN secretary-general, at the daily briefing. "The humanitarian office notes that declining violence, the availability of essential goods and the resumption of some basic services have encouraged people to return," Nesirky said. "But they still need help with shelter and agricultural livelihoods," he quoted OCHA as saying. In recent years, Yemen has simultaneously faced intermittent internal armed conflict in the north, a resurgent separatist movement in the south and increasingly active Islamic militants in the south and elsewhere. According to OCHA, between May 2011 when militants first seized control of Abyan and May 2012 when government forces launched a counter-offensive, more than 200,000 people were forced to flee the province. In June 2012, the military said they had ousted the al-Qaeda-linked militants who controlled much of the area. Since December, the situation has gradually improved.