Yemen’s besieged Taiz is in famine, governor says, as 13 are killed by Saudi airstrike

CAIRO (AP) — A Saudi airstrike in western Taiz killed at least 13 people on Thursday, the Houthi-run health ministry said, as local officials said a siege of the Yemeni city by Houthi rebels has pushed residents into famine.

“The city is in famine, not on the brink of it,” Taiz Gov. Nabil Shamsan said in a briefing, adding that he was speaking a mile away from the front line.

“The Houthis cannot use the siege of Taiz to justify the humanitarian catastrophe they are causing civilians,” said Niku Jafarnia, a Yemen researcher for Human Rights Watch.

The group said Thursday that the siege, which started in early October, could amount to the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare.

Shamsan said the city, which hosts about 1 million people, now receives only a fraction of the water it needs after Houthi forces seized its last outside source. Cooking gas has been blocked entirely, forcing restaurants to close and families to burn wood, while hospitals have nearly run out of oxygen to supply to patients.

The World Food Program said it could not reach over 600,000 people in Taiz who depend on humanitarian aid, and that wheat flour stocks were nearly exhausted. Shamsan said 271 people have been killed and 1,129 wounded since the offensive began earlier this month.

“Even those who could be rescued, they shell them or hit the ambulance with snipers. We’ve had to use a civilian car as an ambulance - they hit that too,” Shamsan said.

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi on Thursday dismissed reports of a siege as “Saudi-fabricated claims.”

“As far as food and humanitarian needs are concerned, the way is open,” he said in a televised speech on the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV, adding that his forces were only cutting off weapons supplies to what he called “Saudi-backed militias.”

The pressure is compounded by people fleeing the fighting elsewhere. Taiz has taken about 124,000 displaced people since August, according to the U.N. migration agency. Yemen descended into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis seized much of the country’s north, including the capital, Sanaa, and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. Taiz has been a focal point of fighting ever since, with government forces holding the city center while the Houthis control the surrounding roads.