The prices of food and fuel have doubled in the city of Taiz as it struggles under a Houthi siege, the UN warned on Tuesday, as it urged the Yemeni rebels to let supplies enter.
The fuel crunch is affecting hospitals and putting patients' lives in danger, while many families in Taiz are struggling to obtain water, said Laurent Bukera, a UN humanitarian official in Yemen.
The Yemeni government on Tuesday accused the Houthis of firing a mortar shell at an ambulance in Taiz, killing two people including an 18-year-old girl. It said the rebels were carrying out “indiscriminate shelling of residential areas”.
The government announced a series of counter-attacks as it tries to regain territory from the Houthis. An offensive by the Iran-backed group in recent weeks has reignited Yemen's civil war and opened a new front in the wider Middle East conflict.
Yemeni forces carried out almost 750 operations involving warplanes, drones, artillery, rocket launchers and snipers, official media said. Army spokesman Col Majid Al Nuzaili said targets included Houthi firing positions and command centres.
The Houthis, whose repeated attacks on Saudi Arabia have caused hundreds of casualties and blocked flights to the kingdom, claimed attacks on Tuesday on the border areas of Jizan and Asir. A Saudi-led coalition backing the government in Yemen said a drone had been destroyed over Riyadh.
Col Al Nuzaili said Yemeni government forces were “intensifying their combat pressure” in Taiz, a city that has become critical to the struggle for western Yemen. Houthi gains on the west coast have raised fears of ships being attacked in the Red Sea, with potential implications far beyond Yemen.
Mr Bukera, the UN official, said the health system in Taiz was on the brink of collapse, as road closures and a lack of security lead to supplies not reaching inhabitants.
“The shortage of energy supplies needed to run hospitals and the availability of medical oxygen is endangering the lives of hundreds of patients. Prices of the remaining food and fuel supplies have more than doubled, exacerbating the pressure on families who are already struggling to meet their basic needs,” he said.
“Of particular concern is the difficulty faced by hundreds of thousands of families in accessing water, as water production in the city has dropped to half its capacity and available alternatives have run out.” Mr Bukera urged Houthi authorities to open “safe passages” to allow basic goods to enter.
The warning came a day after a Houthi attack on a military training camp killed at least 73 people in Shabwa province, raising fears of further escalation. The attack injured more than 200 people, while 14 remained missing on Tuesday, Shabwa Governor Awad Al Wazir said.
Injured recruit Nasser Sheikh Bahaj said three missiles struck as security personnel were training. He told Yemeni media that reconnaissance aircraft had flown over the camp during the previous three nights, filming the site. Reports from Shabwa General Hospital and other medical sites in the city of Ataq, the capital of Shabwa governorate, described chaotic scenes as ambulances and private vehicles carried casualties.
Fighting has spread across Yemen since the initial Houthi push to the sea last month. Last Thursday, Houthi missiles were fired at the Presidential Palace in Aden, killing five people.