Local medical sources say five civilians wounded in shelling of central Taiz
Yemen Herald News 
TAIZ, Yemen — Five civilians were wounded on Tuesday when shelling struck the Al-Thawra neighborhood of central Taiz, local medical sources said.
The wounded were aged between 20 and 24, according to the same sources. All five were hit by shrapnel.
The injuries were to the shoulder, forearm, thigh and hip. The five were taken to the emergency department of Al-Thawra General Hospital.
Their condition was not disclosed. No further detail on their treatment was given.
The account was published by the news site Yemen Online, which attributed it to unnamed local medical sources. No named institution has confirmed it.
Yemen Herald found no second origin for the account. Yemen Herald could not independently verify the number of casualties, the location of the impact or who fired.
Yemen Online described the shelling as carried out by Houthi forces. That characterisation is the outlet’s own.
The Houthi authorities in Sanaa have not commented on the incident. They have rejected other accounts of civilian harm attributed to them in the governorate.
Taiz has been divided between the internationally recognised government and the Houthi movement since 2015. The front line runs through the governorate and in places through the city itself.
The city has been largely encircled for most of that period. Main routes in and out have been repeatedly closed, and residents have depended on secondary mountain roads.
Shelling of residential areas in the governorate has been reported repeatedly in recent weeks.
Six civilians were killed and four wounded in attacks on villagers in the governorate on Oct. 7, the state news agency Saba reported.
Five people, including a child, were killed in shelling in Taiz on Sept. 30, the Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported.
Al Jazeera reported that at least four civilians were killed in a missile strike near the city on Sept. 5.
The Human Rights Information and Training Center, a Yemeni rights group, said its monitoring teams had recorded shelling across 26 locations and fronts in the governorate.
The group issued its statement in early October. It said the shelling had struck residential neighborhoods, villages and civilian homes.
It cited an attack on the Al-Osabah Maternity Hospital in rural Taiz. “Medical facilities are considered civilian objects protected under the rules of international humanitarian law,” the statement said.
The group gave no figure for civilians killed or wounded across the 26 locations.
The Taiz Human Rights Center separately condemned shelling at the Hangar checkpoint, west of the city. A Yemeni lawyer said targeting civilians at the entrance to Taiz was a serious violation of international law.
Fighting in the governorate has widened. Government forces opened a push at al-Waziyah, west of Taiz, on Oct. 7.
Asharq Al-Awsat reported that the fighting on the Taiz fronts had drawn in Houthi reinforcements.
The World Health Organization said on Oct. 6 that 959 people had been killed and 4,207 wounded across 10 provinces since the escalation began.
Those figures were drawn from Health and Population Ministry data through Oct. 2. They cover deaths and injuries recorded at health facilities.
Earlier in the escalation the agency put the toll at close to 900 killed and wounded, of whom 670 were on the Taiz and west coast fronts. That count was given on Sept. 8.
The agency said the situation was moving toward what it called a complex emergency.
It has raised its immediate funding request for the health response to 31 million dollars from 9 million. It has received 2.1 million.
The agency also recorded more than 22,000 suspected measles cases since the start of 2026, with 128 deaths.
More than 200,000 people have been displaced since the fighting escalated, the International Organization for Migration said. The agency reported about 18,500 displaced in the first week of the escalation, on Sept. 8.
It has described the displacement as concentrated in the south-west.
The agency has warned of widening gaps in health care as the conflict escalates.
It has also sought 700,000 dollars for Yemeni refugees who have crossed to Djibouti. It has received 150,000.
The United Nations humanitarian response plan for 2026 lists more than 22 million people in Yemen as needing aid. It puts 18.3 million at acute levels of food insecurity.
The plan records 5.2 million people displaced before the current escalation. It seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.
More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, according to the plan. Of those, 516,157 cases are classed as severe.
Taiz city sits in a basin below Jabal Sabir. Fighting positions on the high ground around it have overlooked its neighborhoods throughout the war.
The governorate is among the most populous in Yemen. It lies on routes linking the interior to the Red Sea coast, where fighting has also moved in recent weeks.
The Yemeni army in Taiz said separately that it had launched attacks on Houthi positions along five fronts in the governorate. The Houthis dispute the government’s battlefield accounts.
No United Nations body has published a casualty figure for the Al-Thawra incident.
Al-Thawra General Hospital is the main public hospital in the government-held part of the city. It also takes patients referred from districts outside it.
About the Author
