Middle East & North Africa
Yemen: UN says all roads into Taiz are closed, nearly 250,000 have lost essential healthcare and 12 hospitals are at risk
OCHA says no commercial supplies are reaching Ta’iz, where 12 hospitals could close, nearly 250,000 people have lost essential healthcare and more than 1,400 diarrhoea and suspected cholera cases were reported in a week.
All roads into the Yemeni city of Ta’iz are now closed because of the fighting and no commercial supplies are getting through, according to the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), as reported by UN News on 2 November. The city is being encircled by Houthi forces, UN News said, describing them as paramilitary and Iran-backed.
Quarter of a million without essential healthcare
OCHA said nearly a quarter of a million people have lost access to essential healthcare because of a lack of supplies. That figure includes more than 186,000 children under the age of five and 23,000 pregnant women. Twelve hospitals are at risk of closing, while demand for care keeps rising as living conditions worsen.
The office also reported more than 1,400 cases of acute diarrhoea and suspected cholera in just one week. UN News noted that cholera mostly spreads through contaminated water. The figures are OCHA’s own estimates and no party to the conflict has been quoted on them in the source.
Displacement keeps growing
Across Yemen, nearly 300,000 people have been forced from their homes since the beginning of August, OCHA said. Before this summer’s escalation, 5.2 million people out of a total of around 42 million were already displaced. OCHA has provided around 254,000 displaced people with food, hygiene supplies and emergency cash assistance.
The new total is higher than the more than 281,000 displaced reported in Geopolitiki’s earlier article Yemen: UN says more than 281,000 displaced since August, with Taiz aid routes cut and a hospital and ambulance hit, and it follows the World Food Programme warning covered in Yemen: WFP says fighting has cut aid to 800,000 people, most of them in Taiz.
What the source does and does not say
The UN report describes needs and access, not responsibility for individual incidents. It does not say how many people remain inside Ta’iz, and it gives no timetable for reopening any road. Figures such as the number of hospitals at risk can change as OCHA updates its assessments, and the numbers quoted here are those given on 2 November.