Houthis Fully Besiege Taiz: Medicines and Fuel Running Out, Medical System in Yemen's Third-Largest City on Verge of Collapse

According to Al Jazeera, Yemen's legitimate government issued a warning on October 11 that the Houthis' full siege of the southwestern city of Taiz is pushing the city to the brink of an "imminent health and humanitarian disaster."

Yemen's Public Health and Population Ministry stated in a declaration that reserves of medicines, intravenous fluids, medical supplies and fuel at medical facilities in Taiz city were "nearly exhausted." The ministry warned that if the situation continues, emergency, surgical, intensive care, dialysis and neonatal services could all be forced to halt, and patients, the wounded, pregnant women and newborns would "face immediate risk." The fuel shortage also threatens hospital backup generators, ambulances, and key facilities that maintain the cold chain for medicines and vaccines, potentially triggering "serious complications and preventable deaths."

"With every moment of delay, the risk of service disruption and loss of life increases," the declaration read. The ministry demanded the immediate lifting of the siege, the reopening of supply corridors, and safe passage for patients, ambulances, medical personnel and aid supplies.

The new round of siege took final shape in early October. Al Jazeera's review noted that the Houthis launched an offensive along the Red Sea coast of Taiz governorate in September, seizing the port city of Mocha; by October 4 they had also captured Turbah town, thereby cutting off the last main highway between Taiz city and the government-controlled areas of Taiz governorate. Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, launched a counteroffensive in early October. Al Jazeera's Sanaa correspondent Yusuf Mawari confirmed that Mocha port, the Zubab district and the areas around the Bab al-Mandab Strait remain under Houthi control.

Nabil Jamil, director of the Planning and Development Office of Yemen's government in Taiz governorate, told Al Jazeera that the current siege is "more comprehensive than in 2015, with more severe consequences"; approximately 2.8 million people live in the government-controlled areas of the governorate, and with 200,000 recently displaced persons flooding in, the consumption of medicines and fuel has risen sharply. Economic costs have emerged in parallel: the price of 20 liters of gasoline on the black market has risen from 30,000 riyals (about $19) to 90,000 riyals (about $58), tripling within days. "We are still waiting for a response or intervention from the ground," Jamil said.

The Houthis call themselves "Ansar Allah" and are backed by Iran; their opponent is Yemen's legitimate government, backed by Saudi Arabia. This conflict, deeply entangled with outside powers, has lasted more than a decade since the Houthis forcibly seized Sanaa in 2014. Taiz experienced a devastating Houthi siege in 2015-2016 — at that time, Yemeni government forces were compressed into an enclave in the city center. Although the 2016 siege was broken, the Houthis maintained a partial closure through other corridors; in 2024 both sides reached an agreement to reopen the eastern corridor, but after fighting resumed, that corridor has been closed once again.

Adam Barron, a researcher at the Washington-based New America think tank's "Future Security Project," told Al Jazeera that Taiz could become a "real turning point" in the conflict. He warned: "This is not just a military contest — the siege taking shape means that approximately one million people in Yemen's third-largest city are trapped inside, creating a real risk of a devastating humanitarian crisis." Nabil al-Sharian, head of the NGO "Justice Right and Development" and a lawyer, stressed: "In any conflict, civilians should never be used as a means of pressure."

The UN Refugee Agency and the World Health Organization have issued warnings that current fighting is pushing Yemen's already fragile medical system into danger. Al Jazeera's report also noted that both the Houthis and Yemeni government forces claim battlefield advances, and that there remain discrepancies in descriptions of actual areas of control; the main sources are Yemeni government ministries and some pro-government officials, whose position belongs to one side of the conflict, and the specific extent of the severity of the Taiz siege awaits further verification by the United Nations and independent third parties.