Aid agencies say Taiz City has been encircled for 20 days, with more than 800,000 people cut off from assistance

Aid agencies warned of a fast-developing humanitarian emergency inside Taiz City in Yemen, which has been encircled by de facto Houthi forces fighting government troops along the country’s west coast. The warnings came from OCHA, the UN aid coordination office, the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization. UN News reported them.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for OCHA, told journalists at a scheduled briefing in Geneva that Taiz has been cut off for 20 days. “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,” he said. He added: “Access roads have been cut off and that means that very little fuel, food or other supplies have reached the city since.”

The WFP reported that more than 800,000 people in Taiz have been cut off from assistance. It said this includes 600,000 people who depend on humanitarian assistance and 200,000 women and children. Azfar Deen, the WFP’s Regional Communications Officer for Eastern and Southern Africa, said: “We’re desperately trying to regain access to Taiz and we continue to support the broader operations across Yemen,”

Mr. Laerke said most residents depend on water delivered by trucks. With roads closed and diesel scarce, he said, water production in the city has fallen by about half and the cost of truck water has roughly tripled. OCHA also said cooking gas is largely unavailable, which threatens community kitchens that serve hot meals to families. It said local aid groups inside the city are handing out their remaining stocks to keep water pumps and hospitals running.

The World Health Organization said hospitals in Taiz are struggling to keep life-saving services going amid severe shortages of fuel, oxygen, medicine and medical supplies. It said 42 health facilities in Taiz City report acute shortages. It said more than 1100 people with kidney failure need dialysis every day, 192 patients are in intensive care and 154 newborns are in incubators. Without urgent supplies, the agency said, emergency surgery, dialysis, intensive care and maternal and newborn services face more disruption.

UNICEF said it has screened more than 168,000 children in Taiz this year. More than 52,000 were found to be acutely malnourished, including more than 11,500 with severe acute malnutrition. The agency has pre-positioned nearly 8,000 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food across Taiz governorate. UNICEF said this is enough to sustain services for approximately three months. Its spokesperson, Ricardo Pires, said access constraints and disruptions to supply routes can make it harder for partners to move supplies and for families to reach treatment safely.

The escalation between Houthi separatists and the Aden-based Government began in early September. It ended the relative calm brought by a 2022 truce.

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, recorded approximately 258,679 displaced people between 7 June and 19 October 2026, most of them in Taiz and Lahj governorates. As of 17 October, 3,836 Yemeni nationals had arrived in Djibouti, reportedly fleeing the deteriorating security situation. UN News said reports indicate at least 1,574 people have been killed and 6,939 injured in the Yemen conflict since August. The source does not say who counted these figures.

The UN is itself affected here, since its own agencies are the ones reporting that they cannot get in. The sources give no account from the Houthi authorities or the government about the encirclement or about access for aid.