UN says 800,000 people in Taiz cut off from aid for 20 days

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GENEVA, Switzerland — More than 800,000 people in the Yemeni city of Taiz have been cut off from aid for 20 days, the UN humanitarian office said Friday.

Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, gave the figure at a news conference in Geneva.

“It’s 20 days and counting since Taiz has been cut off,” Laerke said.

About three-quarters of those residents depend on humanitarian assistance, according to the World Food Programme. At least 200,000 are women and children.

“We are seeing increasingly that the fighting makes it impossible for us to get in and impossible for people to get out,” Laerke said.

Little fuel, food or other supplies have reached the city since the road linking it to Aden was closed, he said.

OCHA said safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access was urgently needed.

UN agencies and international news agencies have described the city as encircled by Houthi forces since early October. The Houthis have not publicly responded to the allegation that they are blocking aid.

Water production in Taiz has fallen by about half, Laerke said, because the roads are closed and diesel for delivery trucks is scarce.

Most residents rely on water brought in by truck. Its cost has roughly tripled.

Cooking gas is largely unavailable, Laerke said, putting at risk the community kitchens that provide hot meals to families.

Local humanitarian groups are handing out what stocks remain, including fuel for water pumps and hospitals. “The clock is running out,” Laerke said.

“In Taiz city alone, 42 health facilities are reporting acute shortage,” said Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization.

Hospitals across Taiz governorate face critical shortages of fuel, oxygen, medicine and medical supplies, Lindmeier said.

He said the lack of fuel threatened oxygen production, emergency transport and the cold chain that keeps vaccines viable.

UNICEF screened more than 168,000 children in Taiz this year, the agency’s spokesperson Ricardo Pires said.

More than 52,000 were found to be acutely malnourished, including more than 11,500 with severe acute malnutrition. Pires said the situation remained extremely concerning.

Azfar Deen of the World Food Programme said agencies were working to regain access to the city.

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on October 20 that he was alarmed by the encirclement and urged Yemen’s de facto authorities to let relief in immediately.

Closing the only supply route between Taiz and Aden was “placing civilians at grave risk, blocking humanitarian aid and cutting off essential supplies,” Türk said.

“Humanitarian aid must be immediately allowed to enter the city and its passage must be facilitated,” he said.

He said civilians who wished to leave Taiz must be allowed to do so freely and safely.

His office said it had verified 32 civilian deaths in Taiz governorate between August 1 and October 19, among them 14 children and nine women.

It verified 115 civilians wounded over the same period, including 36 children and 34 women.

The office also reported restrictions on access to water and essential goods along the Al-Dhabab route.

Türk urged all parties to refrain from using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas.

He also called for the release of UN and non-governmental organisation staff held arbitrarily in Yemen.

Nayef al-Bakri, Yemen’s minister of youth and sports, said a government committee was working with local authorities and aid organisations to open a road through one of the main entrances to Taiz in the coming days.

A relief convoy carrying fuel, medicines and other supplies was being prepared, al-Bakri said. He said talks were under way with the International Committee of the Red Cross on a possible role in facilitating aid.

Humanitarian agencies have reached more than 174,000 displaced people since August, or nearly six in 10 displaced households, OCHA said.

That assistance included food, hygiene kits and emergency cash in the first days after displacement. Newly displaced families report shelter as their most urgent need, followed by food and cash.

Almost 260,000 people have been displaced since August, OCHA said, and about half of them have taken refuge in Taiz.

More than 3,800 people have crossed into Djibouti, according to UN figures.

The European Commission said it would release an additional 22.5 million euros, about 25.2 million dollars, for the response.

That is on top of 87.5 million euros, about 97.9 million dollars, already allocated for Yemen this year, the commission said.

Fighting in Taiz province has intensified in the Jabal Han highlands and in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts.

Yemen Herald could not independently confirm conditions inside Taiz, which UN agencies say their staff cannot currently reach.

Taiz is Yemen’s third-largest city. It lies in the southwestern highlands, inland from the Red Sea coast.

The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, and a Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year in support of the government. A truce brokered by the United Nations in 2022 collapsed in July.

Across Yemen, more than 22 million people need humanitarian assistance and 18.3 million are acutely food insecure, according to the UN response plan published in March.

The plan recorded more than 2.2 million children under five with acute malnutrition, 516,157 of them severely, and 5.2 million people displaced inside the country.

It sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people this year.