For almost 15 months, Houthi rebels have besieged Yemen’s second largest city, only allowing life-saving aid deliveries to enter once every three months, Al Jazeera channel has revealed.
More than 200,000 civilians have been caught up in the fighting in Taiz, a city that has become one of the major front lines in the battle for control of Yemen.
For months, aid agencies have warned of a major humanitarian disaster in the city. There are frequent reports of dire food and water shortages, and of hospitals struggling to function without access to fresh medical supplies.
At least 37 of the city’s 40 hospitals and medical institutions have been forced to close, and the doctors and nurses that are brave enough to remain are forced to operate without essentials such oxygen — which doctors require to put patients under general anesthesia.
Houthi fighters have repeatedly prevented aid groups from delivering medical supplies to the city, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.
Many households are running low on food, medicine, and other necessities as Ramadan nears end.
“The NGOs are trying to help but the problem is bigger than their capacity.” Mohammed Al-Gunaid, an NGO coordinator in Taiz told the channel. “They can only provide basic aid to reduce suffering — nothing more.”
When aid does finally reach the city, residents have to queue under the baking sun where temperatures often exceed 40C to get their share.
And while water tankers visit some areas of the city once a week, buying blocks of ice has become the only way to prevent what little food the people of Taiz have from going bad. The city has been without electricity for more than a year.
“We hide our suffering behind closed doors,” Najib Hasan Abdullah, a Taiz resident, told Al Jazeera. “No one really knows how much we’re suffering. But what can we do? Where can we go to escape this situation?”
Zahra Mahdi, a Taiz resident, spoke of people living in a “state of constant war and fear,” adding that many “just stay at home, frightened of the shelling.”

Source: Arab News