Outside in the blazing 37C heat, close to the neat lines of tents supplied by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, I met Mohammed Abdullarim from Aden, a 63-year-old former tour guide old enough to have been born when Aden was still a British protectorate.
Unlike the new arrivals, Mohammed has been here since 2015. He fled to Djibouti soon after the fighting first flared up between the Houthis and the government of the now-ousted President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
He has been at the camp ever since but suddenly, as we were talking, the sadness of what is happening to his country overwhelmed him and he turned his head away, choking back tears.
“Most of the people here are in the worst condition, inside the tents here. I am very touched, I’m crying for these people, for my people, for their suffering. I want our voices to be heard by the NGOs and the Djibouti government. And I’m thankful to them for accepting us.”
How long will they have to stay here? That depends, of course, on the fighting. Yemen has been wracked by a horrific civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions since 2014.
A shaky, UN-brokered 2022 truce between the Saudis and the Houthis has broken down spectacularly in recent months, with the two sides trading missiles, drones and air strikes.