Taiz, Yemen – In the besieged city of Taiz, Yousef Farhan’s family has run out of choices at mealtime. Shelling forced the family from their home years ago, and they have lived in a school in Taiz’s Wadi al-Qadi zone ever since. Farhan used to sell cucumbers from a small cart in front of the school, earning between 4,000 and 5,000 Yemeni riyals (roughly $2.50 to $3.20) a day.
The money was never steady, but it bought a gas cylinder each month and, now and then, a meal with some variety. Then the siege closed the school, and his trade went with it. The family now cooks over firewood.
His children, aged five months to five years, depend on whatever he can find. So do his sister and her child, who joined him after their neighbourhood came under fire. Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, is home to about 1 million of the country’s roughly 43 million people.
The city has been cut off since early October, when it lost both of its land routes. The Houthis took the town of al-Turbah by October 4, severing the Taiz-Al-Turbah-Aden Road, the main artery for goods. A day earlier, forces loyal to the internationally recognised government closed the eastern al-Houban crossing into Houthi-held territory, citing attempted Houthi incursions.
On October 20, the United Nations warned that road closures and lack of security were blocking vital supplies. Prices of the food and fuel still available had more than doubled, and Taiz’s water production had dropped by half. Across Taiz, families like Farhan’s are working out what to eat and whether they can afford to cook it.
The map below shows the main Taiz-Al-Turbah-Aden Road and three other routes out of the city, all now closed. For weeks, 40-year-old Sayyun Burhan has looked no further ahead than tomorrow. Work is no longer available at the local store where Sayyun’s husband was employed, and his failing health makes it harder for him to find anything else.
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