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Reuters reported from Taiz on November 6 that two single mothers who escaped their village three weeks earlier are now struggling to feed and shelter their children by gathering and selling plastic bottles. Fatima Abdullah Qassem told the news agency that her family fled on foot in the middle of the night after fighting reached their village of al-Sayahi in the al-Dhabab area west of Taiz. The mother of eight said they spent two days sleeping on the street because the damaged building they later occupied was too filthy to enter at first. Qassem added that the structure remains open to the elements with only tarpaulins for cover.
The Reuters dispatch quoted Qassem as saying the shelter offers no protection from dropping temperatures. “The building is open, see, it’s open with tarpaulins set up. We put up tarpaulins, and it’s freezing. We have no blankets, we have nothing, I swear to God,” she said. Qassem, who is separated from her husband, lost one of her sons to a landmine explosion in 2017 according to the report. She and another displaced woman previously sold vegetables in the area before turning to plastic collection.
Intizar Ahmed Saeed, a widow and mother of seven, described her daily efforts to Reuters as barely sufficient for survival. “My life is a struggle every day, by God, a struggle. I tell you, I work for 1,500 (rials, or $0.96) and it is not enough. I go begging for potatoes, tomatoes, pepper… I have girls, all of them inside, where do I take them? There’s no one to work hard to look after them. The man of the house (referring to her son) is 15 years old, and these days there’s no work,” Saeed said. The two women now rely on scavenging discarded plastic containers after their vegetable trade became impossible amid the displacement.
United Nations data cited by Reuters places the total number of people displaced across Yemen by the recent fighting at around 300,000 with Taiz hosting approximately half of them. The International Organization for Migration has stated that clashes between Saudi-backed government forces and Iran-aligned Houthi rebels intensified in early October cutting the city off from outside access. This blockade has prevented humanitarian supplies from entering and civilians from leaving according to multiple aid updates.
Oxfam reported in mid-October that the escalation along Yemen’s western coast had disrupted commercial supply lines leading to shortages of food cooking gas and fuel in Taiz and surrounding districts. The group noted that nearly 115,000 of the displacements tracked since September had been absorbed by Taiz governorate host communities already under strain. UNICEF has separately documented at least 15 verified child deaths and 14 injuries nationwide from the fighting that began in early September with many incidents linked to the Taiz area.
The city of Taiz has faced periodic sieges and frontline divisions since the wider Yemeni conflict erupted in 2015 according to assessments by Médicins Sans Frontières which operated a mother and child hospital on one side of the divide. Recent arrivals like Qassem and Saeed have joined existing displaced populations with limited access to formal camps or assistance. Reuters noted that both mothers continue their plastic collection routines despite the meager returns and approaching winter conditions.
