Yemeni Women Empowerment Foundation says 107 women and children killed in Taiz
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — A Yemeni rights group said 107 women and children were killed in Taiz Governorate between Aug. 1 and Oct. 15, in a report it released Tuesday.
The Yemeni Women Empowerment Foundation titled the report “Mothers’ Pain.” It said 23 women and 84 boys and girls were among the dead.
The foundation attributed the deaths to the Houthis.
The account rests on the foundation’s report as carried by Saba, Yemen’s state news agency. No independent confirmation of the figures has been published, and Yemen Herald found no second origin for the count.
The report also recorded 1,321 raids on homes over the same 10 weeks.
It said 4,860 people were displaced in that period, among them 1,650 women and 3,210 children.
The foundation put the total number of internally displaced people in the governorate at 221,630, most of them women and children.
It said 32 children had been recruited by force.
The report listed 1,056 crimes and violations affecting health care services, and said 246,110 children were out of school in the governorate.
The foundation said the violations had left people dead, displaced and deprived of education and health care, and required international action to ensure accountability and end impunity.
It called for restrictions and the siege on Taiz to be lifted.
It asked for an end to attacks that impede civilian movement and the transport of food, water and medicine.
The foundation held the Houthis responsible for the documented violations and called for independent investigations and accountability for everyone who ordered, committed or took part in the crimes, including leaders found responsible.
It urged the United Nations, the Human Rights Council and other international mechanisms to act on violations against civilians in Taiz.
Yemen Herald found no Houthi response to the report.
United Nations figures for Taiz cover a shorter period and give a lower death toll. The UN human rights office verified 251 civilian casualties in the governorate — 57 killed and 194 injured — according to a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released in late October.
Half of those killed were children, OCHA said.
The foundation’s count covers women and children only and exceeds the verified death toll for all civilians.
A separate group, the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms, counted 212 civilians killed in Taiz between Sept. 1 and Oct. 22, including 38 children and 27 women, in a report of its own.
That group also recorded 314 cases of abduction and enforced disappearance, including 14 children, and said about 280,000 people had been displaced from the governorate.
The two reports cover different periods and were compiled separately. Neither count has been verified independently.
OCHA said almost 260,000 people had been displaced across Yemen since August, and that about half had taken refuge in Taiz, where fighting is concentrated.
Humanitarian partners had reached more than 174,000 displaced people since August, nearly six in 10 displaced households, OCHA said. They provided food, hygiene kits and emergency cash in the first days after displacement.
Newly displaced families told aid workers their most pressing need was shelter, followed by food and cash, according to OCHA.
Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health and Population said medicines, intravenous fluids, medical supplies and fuel at health facilities in Taiz were nearing depletion.
The ministry warned that emergency care, surgery, intensive care, dialysis and neonatal services could stop.
Nabil Jamil, director-general of the government’s planning and development office in Taiz governorate, said about 2.8 million people live in government-held parts of the governorate, along with 200,000 recently displaced.
Houthi forces took al-Turbah by Oct. 4, closing the last main road between Taiz city and other government-held areas.
A United Nations report in October said wheat and flour in the area could run out within about three weeks, and that food prices had risen about 50 percent.
Jamil said a 20-litre container of petrol had risen on the black market from 30,000 Yemeni riyals to 90,000.
The World Health Organization said the displacement of 200,000 people across Yemen since August had coincided with a rise in cholera transmission.
The United Nations has reported 8,034 suspected cholera cases and 27 deaths in Yemen this year, and more than 22,800 suspected measles cases with 128 deaths.
The WHO said about 500 health facilities across nine governorates lack support from aid partners.
Yemen’s Ministry of Education says more than 2.5 million children are out of school nationwide because of the conflict.
OCHA’s 2026 humanitarian needs and response plan, published in March, put the number of people in Yemen requiring assistance at more than 22 million.
The plan recorded 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure.
It counted more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.
The plan put the number of internally displaced people in Yemen at 5.2 million, and aid agencies appealed for $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people in 2026.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric has urged the parties to respect international humanitarian law and avoid attacks on civilians.
The foundation’s reporting period closed on Oct. 15, 12 days before it published the report.
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