Time Running Out for Besieged Taiz: More Than 800,000 Cut Off From Aid, UN Warns
A mounting humanitarian disaster is gripping Yemen's Taiz after nearly three weeks of a Houthi siege that has prevented supplies from entering the city, the United Nations has warned, saying time to reach the city is running out.
Since the Iran-backed Houthis encircled Taiz in early October, the road linking it to Aden — the interim capital of Yemen's internationally recognised government — has been cut off. Since then, little fuel, food or other supplies have reached the city.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN's humanitarian arm OCHA, told a news conference in Geneva on Friday: 'It's 20 days and counting since Taiz has been cut off. We are seeing increasingly that the fighting makes it impossible for us to get in and impossible for people to get out.'
Most people depend on water brought in by trucks, the cost of which has tripled, Laerke said. Cooking gas is also 'largely unavailable', he said, threatening the community kitchens that provide meals to families.
Altogether, more than 800,000 people in Taiz are cut off from aid, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), about three-quarters of whom depend on humanitarian assistance. At least 200,000 of them are women and children.
Local humanitarian groups have been able to distribute their remaining supplies to keep water pumps and hospitals running, Laerke said. But he warned: 'It comes with a time code: the clock is running out' — meaning those services will also stop once stocks are exhausted.
Meanwhile, fighting in Taiz province has intensified in recent days, with clashes reported in the Jabal Han highlands and the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts. Colonel Majid al-Nuzaili, a spokesperson for the forces of the internationally recognised government, said on Friday that troops had conducted raids and counterattacks in Taiz over the last 24 hours, 'neutralising' 620 Houthi fighters and destroying 190 vehicles. Those figures could not be independently verified.
Hospitals in the province are reporting critical shortages of fuel, oxygen, medicine and supplies. World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said 42 facilities in Taiz face 'acute' deficits.
The fighting has also deepened an ongoing hunger crisis. In Taiz alone, UN screenings have found more than 52,000 children with acute malnutrition; approximately 11,500 of them are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
Azfar Deen, a WFP regional communications officer, said: 'We're desperately trying to regain access to Taiz, and we continue to support the broader operations across Yemen.' In response to the humanitarian fallout, the European Commission said on Friday it would release an additional 22.5 million euros ($25.2m) in aid to Yemen, adding to the 87.5 million euros ($97.9m) previously allocated for 2026.
Yemen has been rocked by conflict since the Houthis seized Sanaa and other provinces in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 to support the internationally recognised government. A UN-brokered truce in 2022 fell apart this July, when the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi ports.
The ensuing escalation has displaced nearly 260,000 people, the majority in Taiz and Lahij provinces, according to the UN, and more than 3,800 people have fled to neighbouring Djibouti. At least 1,574 people have been killed and 6,939 others wounded in the conflict since August. Whether a route for aid into besieged Taiz can be reopened has now become a question of survival for its 800,000 people.
