More Than 250,000 People Have Fled Renewed Fighting in Yemen as Taiz Faces Blocked Aid and a Health Emergency, the UN Says

More than 250,000 people have now fled renewed fighting in Yemen, the United Nations said on Tuesday, with around half of those recently uprooted seeking shelter in the southwestern governorate of Taiz, where aid access is 'essentially blocked'. Drawing on the International Organization for Migration's Displacement Tracking Matrix, the UN refugee agency estimated 251,047 people newly displaced between August 1 and October 17, covering 41,840 households; Taiz accounted for 76% of departures and hosted 52% of the newly displaced. Clashes resumed last month between Houthi fighters, formally known as Ansar Allah, and the internationally recognized Government based in Aden, ending the relative calm brought about by the 2022 truce.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the Houthis' closure of the only supply route linking Taiz to Aden is placing civilians at grave risk, blocking humanitarian aid and cutting off essential supplies; he said Taiz City had been encircled by Houthi fighters, whom he urged to allow aid in immediately. Türk noted that 32 civilians have been confirmed killed across the governorate, including 14 children and nine women, and warned of a significant uptick in the risk of death and injury as fighting moves closer to densely populated areas of the city.

'Taiz is certainly the number one concern at the moment in an ocean of concerns,' said Akhil Iyer, the UNICEF Representative in Yemen, briefing journalists from Aden. He said many people had fled repeatedly and were arriving in overcrowded camps or communities with little or no food and almost no clean water, 'literally with just the clothes on their backs'. Sanitation services in Taiz have come to a halt amid a shortage of diesel fuel caused by supply-route blockages, garbage is piling up, and pre-positioned ready-to-use therapeutic food cannot be distributed because 'all of the routes are closed'. The World Food Programme said wheat flour stocks in affected areas of Taiz are nearly exhausted, in a governorate where 10 out of 16 districts are already classified at emergency levels of hunger; more than 168,000 children in Taiz have been screened for malnutrition this year, with over 52,000 found to be acutely malnourished.

On health care, World Health Organization spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic reported that 12 hospitals in Taiz had approximately four days of fuel remaining, that the oxygen cylinders they require are in 'daily deficit', and that 115 of 127 essential medicines have supplies sufficient for about one week or less. UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh added that some 65,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Yemen, most of them from Somalia and Ethiopia, are also urgently in need of support. UN agencies called on all parties to protect children and civilians, safeguard water systems and health facilities, and allow humanitarian access.

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 也门塔伊兹市资料图。照片：Rod Waddington 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经维基共享资源。 / File photo of the city of Taiz, Yemen. Photo by Rod Waddington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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