How a Houthi Siege Is Draining Drinking Water and Food From Taiz, Yemen

Residents of Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, are rationing water, skipping meals and paying sharply higher prices as Iran-backed Houthi rebels besiege the city, NPR and ABC News reported. Drinking water has been scarce in Taiz for more than a decade, but humanitarian groups say the problem has reached crisis levels in recent weeks.

The needs of more than 1 million residents are barely being met, those groups say. Access to wells is limited, desalination plants are running low on fuel and water delivery trucks are largely blocked from entering the city.

What it means for families in the city

Hadil al-Shahid, a mother of two young children, told NPR that before the siege her household used about 10 liters (about 2.6 gallons) of bottled water per day for drinking and cooking. They now stretch the same amount over about four days. The family has given up daily coffee and tea.

Families like hers are paying as much as 75% more for bottled water than a few weeks ago, and some have begun buying water on credit. Truckers who still bring water into Taiz have in some cases tripled their rates because of the dangerous journey.

Food and fuel are also tight. Aid groups say flour and rice cost about 50% more than they did over the summer, and fruits and vegetables are hard to find. Hani Bafaqih, a water and sanitation expert at the aid organization CARE in Yemen, said the price of cooking gas has more than quadrupled. Some families are cooking over burning wood, charcoal or cardboard.

Al-Shahid, who owns a hair salon, said her income dried up a few weeks ago when customers began spending only on food and water. Her children, ages 10 and 5, now eat mostly rice, bread and cheese.

How the shortages feed each other

Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for a United Nations division that focuses on emergency aid, said the shortages compound one another. Without fuel, water pumps, hospital generators and waste collection stop working, he said, and with less clean water and more waste piling up, the risk of diseases such as cholera rises. Thirsty families tapping unprotected wells that could be contaminated add to the danger, he said.

Fuel shortages have also made it harder for community kitchens to serve free hot meals and have forced waste-collection services to shut down, according to the reports.

Why the siege is tightening

Yemen fell into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis seized much of the north, including the capital, Sanaa, and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. Taiz has been a focal point of fighting since then. War damage to the city's aging water system added to the strain from population growth and frequent droughts that shrank groundwater supplies.

By August, Yemen had become a widening front in the Iran war, NPR reported. The Houthis stepped up their advance on Taiz last month after quickly capturing the port city of Mokha, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) away and important for controlling Red Sea shipping. As Houthi forces took more land and roads around Taiz, residents lost access to nearby wells and deliveries from outside the city declined.

Three Houthi officials said the group controls roughly 80% of the countryside around Taiz and several key neighborhoods inside the city. The Yemeni government still holds the center of Taiz, but the siege makes it hard to supply its forces there. In the surrounding hills, government troops are trying to push back the Houthis and face stiff resistance, especially east of the city.

Why it matters beyond Taiz

Analysts say taking Taiz city is vital if the Houthis want to advance south toward Aden and Lahj, but that would not be easy. Ahmed Nagi of the International Crisis Group said any attempt to seize even parts of the city would likely mean a long and costly battle with heavy Houthi casualties.

Meanwhile, Taiz province has taken in roughly half of the people displaced elsewhere in Yemen by fighting since August, an estimated 124,000 people, according to United Nations migration experts. Some displaced families live in makeshift shelters or tents and survive on one meal a day, Laerke said.

Amnesty International has called on the Houthis to open roads into the city immediately, warning that Taiz is being pushed to the brink of a severe humanitarian disaster.

Around Prague, based on reporting by NPR, ABC News