Drinking water has been scarce for over a decade in Taiz, but the problem has reached crisis levels in recent weeks as Iran-backed Houthi rebels besiege Yemen's third-largest city in their escalating conflict with government forces. The needs of Taiz's more than 1 million residents are now barely being met, humanitarian groups say, as access to wells is limited, desalination plants run low on fuel and water delivery trucks are largely prevented from entering the city. Families are rationing every drop.
Before Taiz came under siege, Hadil al-Shahid and her two young children used about 10 liters (about 2.6 gallons) of bottled water per day for drinking and cooking; now they are making the same amount last about four days. "We stopped drinking coffee and tea, which we used to drink daily," al-Shahid said in a phone interview. Families like al-Shahid's are paying as much as 75% more for bottled water than just a few weeks ago, and some have begun to buy water on credit.
The siege of Taiz — a strategic gateway to southern Yemen — isn't only constricting water supplies. Shortages of groceries have sent food prices soaring. Fuel is also in short supply, making it difficult to maintain basic services such as hospitals and sanitation, which compounds the public health risks.
Amnesty International has called on the Houthis to immediately open roads into the city, saying Taiz is being pushed to "the brink of a severe humanitarian disaster." Houthis strangle Taiz, cut off residents' access to wells Yemen descended into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis seized much of the country's north, including the capital of Sanaa, and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. Taiz has been a focal point of fighting ever since. War-related damage to Taiz's aging water infrastructure magnified the pressures of population growth and frequent droughts that led to shrinking supplies of groundwater.
Residents began paying for water delivered by trucks, a mostly reliable alternative — until recently. By August, Yemen had become a widening front in the Iran war. The Houthis ramped up their advance on Taiz last month, after a lightning-fast capture of the port city of Mokha, an area about 130 kilometers (80 miles) away that is vital to controlling shipping through the Red Sea.
As Houthi forces took control of more land and roads surrounding Taiz, residents' access to nearby wells was cut off and deliveries of water from outside the city declined. The truckers that have managed to ferry water into Taiz have in some cases tripled their rates to make the perilous journey. As Taiz's fuel supplies dwindle, its water utility is struggling to maintain limited operations and desalination plants are running well below capacity.
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