Houthis tighten siege of Taiz as aid groups warn 600,000 people are cut off from food help

Houthi forces have encircled Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, by cutting the main road south to Aden, tightening a siege that is driving families from their homes and cutting off aid, Reuters reported.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said this week that fighting has cut off life-saving assistance to 800,000 people in Yemen, including more than 600,000 in Taiz who depend on humanitarian aid. More than 200,000 of those in Taiz are women and children, the agency said.

Inside the city

Families are sheltering in schools, shops and unfinished buildings, Reuters reported. "There are no camps equipped to receive these families," said Ahmed al-Jalal, who directs the displaced-persons camp unit in Taiz governorate's Al-Muzaffar district, according to Reuters.

A resident, Wathiq Mahyoub, told Reuters that prices were rising, fuel was running short and garbage was piling up. "The siege is suffocating. It's strangling the citizens," he said.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said 12 hospitals had about four days of fuel, with shortages of oxygen and medicines, Reuters reported. "Taiz is being cut off, and its hospitals are running out of supplies as fighting has reached urban districts where the main referral hospitals stand," he said.

Zoe Brennan, a spokesperson for the UN migration agency, said 233,077 people have been displaced in the latest fighting, 121,530 of them in Taiz, according to Reuters.

Food running out

WFP said wheat flour stocks in Taiz are nearly exhausted and remaining market supplies may last only a short time if access stays blocked. Ten of Taiz's 16 districts were previously classified at the "Emergency" level of food insecurity (IPC 4).

"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," said El-Khidir Daloum, WFP's representative and country director in Yemen.

WFP said it will have to sharply reduce aid from November without new funding and needs $268 million to sustain operations in Yemen through 2027. It also said 72 UN staff, including 37 WFP employees, remain detained by Houthi authorities.

The wider war

Yemen's war resumed this summer after a four-year truce, Reuters reported, and has become a new theater in the regional conflict that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Taiz is the last major urban stronghold of anti-Houthi forces in Yemen's southern highlands.

The Houthis deny being armed by Iran and say they are fighting a corrupt system, according to Reuters. On Thursday, Oct. 15, the group fired missiles at the presidential palace complex in Aden, killing five people, the government said. Government forces last week launched a campaign to retake Houthi-held areas near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Why it matters

A Houthi capture of Taiz, a city of almost 600,000, would be one of the biggest turning points in the war, Reuters reported. The Saudi-led coalition has also listed dozens of Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure in recent weeks, Reuters reported.