Fighting near Taiz sends Yemeni families fleeing as hospitals face mounting pressure
BBC reporters observed fire near Taiz’s front line and met families displaced by the fighting. WHO says the wider escalation is adding casualties and straining health services.
Fighting around Yemen’s city of Taiz has intensified since Houthi forces seized the Red Sea port of Mokha on 10 September. BBC reporters travelling with government forces observed fire near the city’s front line and met residents who had fled their homes. The accounts show the immediate danger to civilians, while World Health Organization figures point to a wider rise in casualties and displacement.
What reporters saw near the front line
The BBC’s Nawal Al-Maghafi travelled from Taiz with government forces through checkpoints to the edge of territory they controlled. A soldier accompanying the team identified a drone overhead, and the journalists took cover. About ten minutes later, they heard a succession of strikes. The BBC said it could not tell where those strikes landed. The visit gave reporters access to one side of a changing battlefield, rather than a complete view of it.
Homes stood abandoned on slopes near the line of fighting. A resident identified only as Ali told the BBC that two mortars had landed on his property, roughly a kilometre from the front line. He said he had sent his children to a displacement camp but stayed with his wife and sisters to care for their animals. ‘I am terrified,’ he said, explaining that the family depended on the livestock for food.
A government fighter told the BBC that the bodies of 18 soldiers lay in an area his unit could fire across but could not reach. That number is the fighter’s account, not a confirmed casualty total. Contacts on the Houthi side told the BBC they were consolidating forces for a major offensive; government forces said they were aware and preparing too. Those statements do not establish when or whether another offensive will take place.
Why Taiz matters
Government forces hold the centre of Taiz, while Houthi positions lie to the north and east, according to the BBC. The fiercest recent fighting has been on the western approaches, where the sides are contesting high ground overlooking the city’s route south. Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, is home to close to a million people. The BBC assessed that Houthi control of that high ground could make a government attempt to retake Mokha harder; it did not report a change in control of Taiz.
The battle followed the Houthi seizure of Mokha, which the UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, reported to the Security Council on 10 September. Grundberg said fighting was ongoing and the situation remained fluid. NewsJaws previously reported on the port’s capture and its importance to Red Sea shipping.
Civilian injuries and displacement
On the road into Taiz, BBC journalists counted at least five ambulances heading towards the city’s main hospital within half an hour. At al-Thawra hospital, every intensive-care bed they saw was occupied. Among the patients was 12-year-old Ghana Nabeel, who was unconscious after shrapnel struck her head while she was herding goats. Her family said a nearby mortar had been fired by the Houthis. The BBC report did not independently establish who fired it.
At the al-Monig displacement camp south of Taiz, the BBC was told that 200 families had arrived over the preceding ten days. One woman, identified by the pseudonym Maryam Saleh, said she and her family had fled Mokha on foot and that her nephew was killed by mortar shrapnel as they escaped. Fatma Mohammed Saleh, who has a disability, said she crawled for two days before a motorcyclist brought her to the camp. She said she had not seen her family since.
The WHO said on 24 September that more than 122,000 people had been displaced across eight governorates during the recent escalation. It reported 3,672 casualties, including 674 deaths, between 6 August and 18 September. Taiz and the West Coast accounted for a combined 1,349 of those casualties. These figures cover different places and periods from the BBC’s accounts at the front line; they do not identify who caused each injury.
Health services under strain
The WHO said about 60% of 5,415 assessed health service units were fully functioning, while 35% were partly functioning and 4% were not functioning. Full trauma care was available in only 6% of assessed facilities. It said travel from Aden to the West Coast had stopped and access to Taiz city and At-Turbah was difficult, complicating medical referrals and supply routes. The agency cautioned that its information was evolving amid access and reporting constraints.
WHO representative Dr Syed Jaffar Hussain said the escalation was placing greater pressure on hospitals, health workers and life-saving services. He called for protected access, supplies and stronger referral systems. For people near Taiz’s contested approaches, the next course of the fighting remains uncertain: the BBC’s observations and the opposing sides’ statements establish danger and preparation, but no verified outcome for control of the city.
Sources and context
- Inside Yemen's front-line city as Houthis battle for controlBBC News
- WHO scales up health response as escalating conflict deepens health needs in YemenWorld Health Organization / United Nations in Yemen
- Briefing by the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, to the Security CouncilUN Office of the Special Envoy for Yemen
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.
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