DJIBOUTI, Oct. 15 -- Djibouti took in roughly 4,000 refugees from Yemen in a single week last month, more than half of them children, most in or near Obock, a fishing town of about 20,000 people. This month a migrant boat carrying 305 people sank north of Obock, bound the other way.

Jose Barahona, the UN resident coordinator in Djibouti, told Arab News that the situation is becoming "a perfect storm" and that "The trigger was when the conflict in Yemen extended to the port of Mokha." The Houthis seized Mokha in September, the paper reported, then overran Yemen's southwestern coast and islands near the Bab al-Mandab strait, as TEH reported when the Houthis seized Mayun Island. The International Organization for Migration says renewed figh...