UN warns Yemen civilians bear high cost as Taiz runs short of aid
Nearly 300,000 people have been displaced since August, and the UN relief chief demanded the release of detained UN staff.
Civilians in Yemen are paying a heavy toll as fighting spreads, the UN's relief chief Tom Fletcher said on Monday, Turkey's state-run news agency Anadolu Agency reported.
Fletcher wrote on the social media platform X that nearly 300,000 people have been forced from their homes since August.
In the besieged city of Taiz, home to about 1 million people, roads are closed and supplies are dwindling, he said.
Water production in the city has been cut by half, and food prices have risen by at least 50 percent, Fletcher said.
Hospitals are running low on fuel and medicine, he added.
Fletcher said he had spoken with Foreign Minister Afrah Abdulaziz Al-Zouba about the crisis.
Humanitarian partners have reached close to 260,000 displaced people, he said, but needs are growing faster than the aid response.
He called on the parties to reopen the roads so aid can reach people, saying, "Open the roads and let them through."
Fletcher also condemned the death in Houthi custody of Mohammad el Shami, a staff member of the UN Human Rights Office in Yemen, and said 70 UN staff and dozens of other humanitarian workers remain detained.
He demanded their release, saying, "Release them."
El Shami had been held by the Houthi group since June 6, 2024, and was the second UN employee to die in Houthi detention.
The first was Ahmed Ba'alawi, a national staff member of the World Food Program, who had been held by local authorities in northern Yemen since Jan. 23, 2025, and died on Feb. 11 that year.
Yemen has been in conflict since 2014, when Houthi forces seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.
The war has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, leaving millions of people dependent on aid.
