Taiz Cut Off After Houthi Encirclement; 600,000 People Cut Off From Aid, U.N. Warns

Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, has been effectively cut off for weeks, leaving more than 600,000 people who depend on aid out of reach and pushing water and health services toward collapse, according to U.N. agencies and a new report from Human Rights Watch.

The rights group said Thursday that the humanitarian crisis in Taiz has sharply worsened since October, when Houthi forces fully encircled the city and blocked or attacked the remaining major supply route. Taiz has faced siege-like access restrictions since 2015, with government-backed forces controlling the city center and Houthi forces controlling surrounding areas and blocking major roads. But U.N. agencies say this month’s escalation amounts to a sudden, citywide cutoff.

The main route into the city is the Taiz-Aden road via Hayjat al-Abd. Human Rights Watch said in a separate report published Oct. 26 that Houthi forces used explosives on or around Oct. 18 to severely damage that road, worsening access. In its report published Oct. 29, the group said the road damage and other restrictions tightened the siege and deepened shortages in one of Yemen’s most food-insecure areas.

The World Food Program said Oct. 14 that it could not access “more than 600,000 people in Taiz who depend on humanitarian assistance” and warned that “wheat flour stocks are nearly exhausted.” If access problems continue, it said, remaining market supplies may last only a short time.

By Oct. 23, U.N. humanitarian office spokesman Jens Laerke said, “It’s 20 days and counting since Taiz has been cut off,” indicating the effective closure began around Oct. 3.

Other U.N. officials described a rapidly deteriorating situation. On Oct. 20, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Laurent Bukera said water production in Taiz city had been halved and that alternative supplies were running out. “The health system is close to collapse,” he said, warning that shortages threatened hospital power supplies and medical oxygen. The same day, UNICEF country representative Akhil Iyer said diesel shortages threatened to shut down water pumps and that the cost of trucked water had tripled since the latest escalation.

Human Rights Watch said it interviewed 15 people in October, including five residents, four doctors and six civil society workers. They described severe shortages of fuel, food, water, cooking gas, medicine, anesthesia and oxygen. Some patients with chronic illnesses could not reach treatment, the group said, and doctors reported that some facilities had to suspend services because of diesel shortages.

One local aid worker told Human Rights Watch that cooking gas prices had risen by about 400%. The interviews also pointed to transport problems that made it harder for civilians to move in and out of the city as supply lines narrowed further.

A Houthi spokesperson told Human Rights Watch on Oct. 21 that Yemeni government forces, not the Houthis, were blocking roads into the city. But Human Rights Watch said residents, civil society workers and U.N. officials it cited all placed responsibility for the latest shortages on Houthi forces surrounding Taiz.

The report adds to a growing body of warnings from relief agencies that the current crisis is different in scale and speed from Taiz’s long-running access problems. While the city has been partly encircled for years, U.N. agencies say the October cutoff has interrupted aid deliveries, drained flour stocks, slashed water output and left hospitals at risk of losing power and oxygen supplies.

Human Rights Watch said the latest restrictions showed “utter disregard for civilian lives.” Under international humanitarian law, siege warfare is not illegal in itself. But using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, including by impeding relief supplies, is prohibited and can amount to a war crime. Human Rights Watch said the restrictions imposed on Taiz raise those concerns, though no legal determination has been established in the report.