Yemeni and foreign officials are warning of potential catastrophe as the Houthi militia besieges Taiz, one of Yemen’s largest cities, leaving its residents with dwindling supplies of food, water and fuel.
The siege is entering its third week amid an escalating war between the Iranian-backed Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, and the Yemeni government, which is supported by Saudi Arabia. Fierce battles are raging on the outskirts of Taiz, which is now surrounded by the militia.
In phone interviews, residents and officials said that households were running out of food and clean drinking water, and that hospitals had nearly depleted their stocks of fuel and medical supplies.
“The situation is truly catastrophic,” said Alhan Al-Shaibani, a resident of Taiz who lives in a household of seven. Her family, she said, has resorted to boiling salty tap water because it no longer has access to clean drinking water, and her mother and grandmother, who have diabetes, cannot find their medication in the city’s pharmacies.
“What frightens me most is the lack of food supplies,” she said, adding, “How are people supposed to survive?”
Vegetables are nearly impossible to find, and without gas, families are heating their meals by burning firewood, coal or cardboard boxes.
“Anyone who happens to have vegetables at home is considered fortunate, as if they were royalty,” Ms. Al-Shaibani said.
The Houthis have accused their adversaries — troops allied with the internationally recognized government — of responsibility for the worsening situation in Taiz, saying that they were the ones blocking roads into the city, and called upon them to surrender.
Asked about the humanitarian situation, Ahmad Ameen, the governor of Houthi-controlled areas of the province, said that the militia was ready “to open any safe roads that would help alleviate civilian suffering” and was trying to coordinate the delivery of food supplies.
Taiz is a cultural and intellectual hub in the mountains of southwestern Yemen. It is a dense urban area with a population of hundreds of thousands, possibly significantly more.
Last week, the United Nations World Food Program warned of the increasingly dire situation, saying that humanitarian access to the city had been severely restricted by blocked roads and renewed fighting.
“This is the kind of situation that can rapidly spiral into a humanitarian catastrophe if assistance cannot move safely and reach those who need it most,” El-Khidir Daloum, the program’s country director in Yemen, said in a statement.
Soon after the Houthis seized the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in 2014, the militia swept across much of Yemen’s northwest and began to blockade Taiz. Fighters allied with the government held off the Houthis for years, earning the city a reputation as a stronghold of resistance. While Taiz was under siege back then, residents and businesses were still able to maintain a modicum of access to the rest of the country.
In 2022, a truce brought fragile peace. But fighting reignited this year, amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and rising tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.
More than 250,000 people have been displaced in Yemen since August, the United Nations said on Monday. Last month, the Houthis seized control of the country’s Red Sea coast, then moved to encircle Taiz. A counteroffensive by government forces, backed by Saudi warplanes, has made limited headway.
During the first week of October, the Houthis took over the last road connecting Taiz to Yemen’s southern coast.
The crisis began to emerge then, said Shayef al-Jabri, a consultant with the Civic Center for Advocacy and Support, a local nonprofit. Basic goods like yogurt started to disappear from markets, and people began hoarding gasoline and cooking gas, he said. Now, garbage is piling up in the streets, and many trucks that transport clean water are trapped by fighting, he added.
Some families are trying to escape, but routes out of the city are perilous. The situation is even worse than during the previous siege, residents and officials said.
Mohammed al-Faqih, director of quality and infection control at al-Thawra, the city’s main hospital, said stocks of fuel to run its generators were nearly gone, as were medications for life-threatening conditions such as kidney disease.
“If the siege is not lifted, expect a health catastrophe in the city and the deaths of many people with chronic illnesses and cancer patients,” he said.
On the city’s outskirts, fierce fighting continues under heavy Houthi bombardment, said Col. Abdul Basit al-Baher, an officer in the Yemeni government’s military.
“You feel trapped from all sides,” he said. “There is no resupply of weaponry. Once our current stocks are depleted, we will have no further resources.”
Yet Colonel al-Baher dismissed the Houthi calls to concede defeat.
“To die while resisting is better and more honorable than to die while surrendering,” he said. “Life under the rule of the militia is, in itself, a form of death.”
Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from Sanaa, Yemen.
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