Taiz, Yemen – Taiz is under siege, but 37-year-old Iskandar Abdullah already knows what it’s like to live under one. The city, a major population centre in Yemen’s southwest, endured a devastating Houthi siege between 2015 and 2016, as the Iranian-backed group attempted to capture the city from local pro-government forces. The Houthis continued to maintain a partial siege in the following years through their control over other access points into the city.
The group soon established full control over the port city of Mocha and the district of Dhubab, where the Bab al-Mandeb strait – through which 12 percent of global trade passes – is located. The Houthis, who have controlled Yemen’s populous northwest, including the capital Sanaa, since the country’s war started in 2014, did not stop their military attacks at the Red Sea. Even as government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, began a counteroffensive in early October and regained some of the territory lost, the Houthis pressed forward in the countryside surrounding Taiz.
The Houthis successfully captured the town of al-Turbah by October 4, severing the only remaining main road between Taiz city and other government-held areas. Taiz residents, like Abdullah, are now worried that the city is about to face a prolonged full-scale siege. Abdullah remembers how difficult life was between 2015 and 2016, when pro-government forces were confined to an enclave in the centre of the city.
Locals endured “horrors, as well as appalling humanitarian and economic conditions unlike anything experienced by any other Yemeni governorate during the war”, according to Abdullah. In 2024, under domestic and international pressure, the Houthis agreed to reopen another important route into the city from the east, connecting it to Sanaa and other Houthi-controlled areas of northern Yemen. However, with the recent resumption of fighting, the vital crossing has been closed following attempted incursions by Houthi fighters, according to security sources who spoke to Al Jazeera.
The closure has severed a crucial route that had become essential for Taiz residents – much of the city’s food supplies had entered through the crossing. Nabil Jamil, director-general of the planning and development office in Taiz governorate, said that the current siege on Taiz is “more comprehensive and its impact more severe than in 2015”. Jamil said that approximately 2.8 million people had been living in government-held areas of Taiz governorate, alongside another 200,000 people who have been recently displaced by the fighting along the coast and rural Taiz.
Less than a week into the renewed siege, the city’s streets appeared almost deserted because of a fuel shortage, which had previously entered the city through the al-Turbah route from Aden. On the black market, the price of a 20-litre (5.2-gallon) container of petrol rose from 30,000 Yemeni riyals ($19) to 90,000 Yemeni riyals ($58). Meanwhile, markets and grocery shops have seen a surge in demand, as residents rush to stock up on food amid fears that supplies would disappear from shelves because of the siege.
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