UN urges restraint as it voices deep concern over escalation in Yemen’s Taiz
Yemen Herald News 
NEW YORK, United States — The United Nations said it is deeply concerned by escalating military operations across Yemen, above all in Taiz governorate, and urged all parties to show maximum restraint.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres, set out the position in mid-October.
He called on the warring parties to comply with international humanitarian law.
They should refrain from direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, he said.
Dujarric also asked them to take every feasible precaution to shield civilians and civilian facilities from the effects of military operations.
The United Nations repeated its long-held position that the conflict has no military solution.
It called for inclusive dialogue toward a negotiated political settlement.
Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, is continuing efforts toward such a settlement, the UN News Centre reported.
The United Nations figures on Taiz come from its own agencies. Yemen Herald found no source for them independent of the UN.
Basic supplies in Taiz city are becoming “increasingly scarce and expensive,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Oct. 13.
Petrol prices have tripled, according to the office. Cooking gas is largely unavailable.
Food prices have risen about 50 percent, OCHA said.
Wheat and flour stocks could run out in less than three weeks, the office said.
Fuel shortages are disrupting the city’s water supply and put water services at risk, according to OCHA.
Displacement sites around the city are overcrowded, with poor access to clean water and minimal health services, the office said.
The United Nations and its humanitarian partners have reached nearly 148,000 people with emergency assistance across Yemen since the fighting began in August, OCHA said.
The office asked the parties to allow safe civilian movement and safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access.
Taiz is Yemen’s third-largest city. Houthi forces have besieged it since 2015.
The encirclement tightened at the start of October. Houthi forces took al-Turbah by Oct. 4, cutting the last main road between Taiz city and other government-held areas, Al Jazeera reported.
That followed an offensive the Houthis began in September along the Red Sea coast of Taiz governorate, in which they captured the port city of Mocha, according to the same report.
Government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, began a counteroffensive in early October around Dhubab district and the Bab al-Mandab area. Both sides claim gains.
Mocha remains under Houthi control, Al Jazeera reported. Adam Baron of the New America think tank said the siege leaves roughly a million people trapped.
Nabil Jamil, director-general of the government’s planning and development office in Taiz governorate, said the current siege is “more comprehensive and its impact more severe than in 2015.”
About 2.8 million people live in government-held parts of the governorate, Jamil said, along with 200,000 recently displaced.
A 20-litre container of petrol on the black market rose from 30,000 riyals to 90,000, he said.
“We are still waiting for a response or intervention on the ground,” Jamil said.
Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health and Population warned this month of an “imminent health and humanitarian catastrophe” in the governorate.
Medicines, intravenous fluids, medical supplies and fuel at Taiz health facilities were nearing depletion, the ministry said.
Emergency care, surgery, intensive care, dialysis and neonatal services could stop, it said.
The ministry attributed the shortages to Houthi efforts to obstruct supplies, and demanded that the siege be lifted and supply routes reopened.
The Houthis have not responded publicly to the ministry’s account.
Annette Heinzelmann, the World Health Organization’s emergency director for the region, said disease outbreaks could spread rapidly among already vulnerable communities without urgent funding and access.
WHO said its 90-day emergency response requires $31 million and has received $4.3 million.
About 500 health facilities across nine affected governorates have no partner support, according to the agency.
More than 22,800 suspected measles cases and 128 deaths have been reported in Yemen this year, WHO said. Vaccination coverage stands at about 45 percent for each of the two recommended doses.
Nabil Sharyan, head of the Justice for Rights and Development Organisation, said civilians must never be used as a means of pressure.
Guterres had raised the fighting earlier in the month. On Oct. 5 his spokesperson said the secretary-general was “deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting,” which had “intensified markedly in recent days.”
Guterres condemned continued Houthi cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia in the same statement.
The wider needs were set out before this escalation. OCHA’s humanitarian needs and response plan of March 2026 counted more than 22 million people in need across Yemen.
It put 18.3 million people in acute food insecurity.
More than 2.2 million children under five were acutely malnourished, the plan said, 516,157 of them severely.
It recorded 5.2 million internally displaced people, and sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.
Taiz endured an earlier Houthi siege in 2015 and 2016, when government forces were confined to a city-centre enclave, Al Jazeera reported. Partial blockades continued after it was broken.
The Houthis agreed in 2024 to reopen an eastern route into the city. It has been closed since the fighting resumed.
The International Organization for Migration recorded a separate movement into the country. More than 130,000 migrants had entered Yemen by the end of September since the start of the year, the agency said.
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