Yemen’s ambassador to the US asks Senate aide to press for an end to the Taiz siege
Yemen Herald News 
WASHINGTON, United States — Yemen’s ambassador to the United States asked a senior US Senate aide to press for an end to the Houthi siege of Taiz.
Ambassador Jamila Ali Raja met Paul Grove, a senior staff member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the state news agency Saba reported on Oct. 29.
Raja asked for the siege to be lifted unconditionally, Saba said.
She also called for the reopening of main roads and crossings so that civilians could move freely and aid could reach the city, according to the agency.
Raja asked the United States to resume and increase humanitarian assistance to Yemen, Saba reported.
She told Grove that conditions in Taiz had deteriorated because of the siege and continued attacks, which she said had restricted movement and obstructed access to aid and to basic services.
Raja also asked for US support for international efforts toward peace and stability in Yemen, the agency said.
The account of the meeting rests on Saba, the news agency of Yemen’s internationally recognised government. No independent confirmation of what was said in the meeting has been published.
Raja presented her credentials to US President Donald Trump, according to Yemen’s foreign ministry.
Her request came as rights organisations and United Nations agencies reported a deterioration in Taiz during October.
Human Rights Watch said on Oct. 29 that Houthi forces had fully encircled the city that month, blocking and attacking the last remaining supply route.
The organisation said residents faced severe shortages of fuel, food, water, medicine and cooking gas.
Niku Jafarnia, the group’s Yemen and Bahrain researcher, said the Houthis had bombed, starved and denied humanitarian aid to residents throughout the siege.
Human Rights Watch said the conduct it documented may amount to the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare.
The organisation said international law does not prohibit sieges in themselves.
It based its findings on interviews with 15 people during October, including five city residents, four doctors and six civil society workers.
A Houthi spokesperson told the organisation on Oct. 21 that government forces, not the Houthis, were blocking the roads.
Human Rights Watch said residents, civil society workers and UN officials placed responsibility on the Houthis.
The organisation said one health facility stopped working for three days after running out of diesel.
Doctors told it that anaesthesia for surgery was in short supply, and health workers reported a shortage of oxygen.
An aid organiser told the group that cooking gas prices had risen about 400%. A resident said vegetable prices doubled early in the escalation, and the cost of hiring truck drivers doubled.
Amnesty International said on Oct. 22 that Houthi forces had cut the main road linking Taiz to Aden, forcing civilians onto mountain tracks that it described as dangerous and poorly maintained.
Human Rights Watch identified the cut route as the Hayjat al-Abd road and called it the city’s most important supply line.
Heba Morayef, Amnesty’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said civilians in Taiz were trapped and facing severe shortages of essential goods.
Amnesty said critical medical facilities were running low on fuel and oxygen.
The UN Human Rights Office recorded 32 people killed in Taiz governorate between Aug. 1 and Oct. 19, including 14 children and nine women, Amnesty said.
It recorded 115 people injured over the same period, among them 36 children and 34 women.
Amnesty said wheat and flour supplies could run out in less than three weeks, that food prices had risen about 50% and that cooking gas was largely unavailable.
The World Food Programme said on Oct. 14 that more than 600,000 people in Taiz depended on humanitarian assistance and that wheat flour stocks were nearly exhausted.
The agency said most districts in the governorate were considered to be at emergency levels of hunger.
Laurent Bukera, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said on Oct. 20 that water production in Taiz city had been halved and that the health system was close to collapse.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Oct. 23 that the city had been cut off for 20 days and counting.
UNICEF said the cost of trucked water had tripled since the latest escalation.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported this week that displacement across Yemen had passed 281,000 people since August, with aid routes into Taiz narrowing.
Taiz is Yemen’s third-largest city and hosts the country’s largest displaced population, according to Amnesty.
Houthi forces have surrounded the city since 2015. Government-backed units hold the centre.
A UN-brokered ceasefire agreed in 2022 collapsed in July.
The UN humanitarian plan published in March put more than 22 million people in Yemen in need of assistance and 18.3 million as acutely food insecure.
The plan recorded more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely, and counted 5.2 million people displaced inside the country.
The appeal sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.
Saba described Grove as a senior staff member of the committee and did not identify his portfolio.
Saba did not say whether Grove gave any commitment on aid.
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