Agencies of the United Nations, including the World Food Program and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), have been warning of the lack of food, water, fuel, and other basic necessities facing the three million people in Yemen’s Taiz governorate, now entering its third week under siege. Speaking at a news conference in Geneva on October 20, UNICEF representative in Yemen Akhil Iyer told reporters that the Taiz public water system, which serves about three million, including 1.6 million children, is at risk of shutdown, due to lack of diesel fuel to operate pumps.
Iyer said, “Already one of Yemen’s most water-scarce areas, Taiz is now facing renewed pressure on its most essential services for thousands of displaced families. Since the latest escalation in September, an estimated 120,000 people—more than half of all those newly uprooted across Yemen—have been displaced to Taiz. Many have fled repeatedly, arriving in overcrowded communities with little food, limited clean water, and almost nothing left to sustain themselves. Fighting has disrupted critical supply routes, including the Taiz–Aden corridor. Food and fuel are becoming scarcer, prices are rising, and essential services are at risk of suspension. Now, diesel shortages threaten to bring water pumps to a halt, while the cost of trucked water has tripled since this latest escalation. For families already struggling to buy food, safe water is becoming increasingly unaffordable.”
Due to the lack of safe water, overcrowded displacement camps, and poor sanitation, cholera cases have tripled in just three weeks across the country. Yemen has 22,800 suspected measles cases with 128 deaths—mostly among children. There are vaccines for both of these diseases, but only 45% of the children have taken the necessary two doses for measles.
The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) warns that more than 18 million people face acute food insecurity, and that 800,000 people have been cut off from supply lines as a result of the shifting battle front. An estimated 5.2 million people are living in dsiplacement camps with virtually no services. The WFP also warned that wheat flour stocks in affected areas of Taiz are nearly exhausted—an alarming development, in a governorate already facing some of Yemen’s highest levels of food insecurity. Ten of its 16 districts have been previously classified as at emergency levels. UN agencies had found that about one-third of children were malnourished this year, before the recent escalation of fighting, but they were able to screen only a sampling of 168,000 children. “For children in Taiz, hunger, unsafe water, and disease are becoming an increasingly dangerous combination,” Iyer said.
Across Yemen, at least nine medical facilities have been attacked, damaged, or put out of service in hard-hit areas, including Taiz, Lahj, and Hodeidah. Hospitals in Marib and Ras Al-Arah have paused obstetric and newborn care, as staff and facilities are redirected to trauma care for the war wounded. Frontline medical facilities have had more than 700 admissions in a single day, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Iyer said, “Children in Taiz have already endured years of conflict and deprivation. They cannot afford to lose services that are keeping them alive.”
