More than 300,000 flee renewed fighting in Yemen
The U.N. migration agency, IOM, said more than 300,000 people have fled their homes in western Yemen as fighting intensified between Houthi forces and Saudi-backed government forces, nearly all of them in the past two months. Families urgently need shelter, food, clean water and health care while aid access is restricted, and IOM is appealing for $45 million over the next six months. Read at IOM (UN migration agency) →
La Retirada: Spain's republicans flee to France
What happened then
In the last weeks of the Spanish Civil War, roughly half a million Spanish men, women and children crossed the Pyrenees into France in a few weeks. Spaniards remember it as La Retirada, the Retreat.
What caused it
The war began in July 1936, when army officers rose against the elected Republic. It became a proxy war: Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy backed General Francisco Franco's Nationalists, while the Soviet Union aided the Republic. When Barcelona fell to Franco on Jan. 26, 1939, civilians and defeated soldiers streamed north toward the border in winter weather.
How it was resolved
France opened its border to civilians in late January and to retreating soldiers in early February. Unprepared for such numbers, authorities held many refugees in hastily fenced camps on the beaches at Argelès-sur-Mer, Saint-Cyprien and Le Barcarès, with little shelter. The poet Antonio Machado, who made the crossing, died in Collioure weeks later.
How it turned out
Many refugees eventually returned to Spain; others stayed in exile for decades, and Mexico alone took in tens of thousands. Thousands of Spanish exiles later fought in the French Resistance, and thousands more died in Nazi camps such as Mauthausen. The Retirada still shapes how Spain and France remember the war.
Sources: Wikipedia: La Retirada · Wikipedia: Spanish Republican exile · Britannica: Antonio Machado
Further reading: The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor