Key facts
- Taiz hosts about half of the 300,000 people displaced across Yemen by the latest fighting, according to the UN.
- Taiz has been largely isolated since October 3, with fighting blocking humanitarian supplies and preventing civilians from leaving.
- Fatima Abdullah Qassem, a mother of eight separated from her husband, said her family fled al-Sayahi on foot at night.
- Qassem said the family spent two days sleeping on the street before moving into a damaged building.
- Intizar Ahmed Saeed, a widow and mother of seven, said she earns 1,500 rials ($0.96) and it is not enough to feed her children.
- Qassem lost one of her sons in a landmine explosion in 2017, she said.
Two single mothers who fled their village three weeks before November 6 are struggling to keep their children fed and warm in Taiz, a Yemeni city largely isolated since October 3, when clashes between the Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Houthis escalated. They live in a damaged building and sell plastic bottles to get by.
Taiz hosts about half of the 300,000 people displaced across Yemen by the latest fighting, according to the UN. The fighting has prevented humanitarian supplies from entering the city and civilians from leaving, Reuters reported.
Fatima Abdullah Qassem said her family fled on foot in the middle of the night when fighting reached their village of al-Sayahi in the al-Dhabab area west of Taiz. The family spent two days sleeping on the street because the damaged building they now live in was so dirty, she said.
"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," Qassem said, gesturing to their makeshift living space.
Qassem, a mother of eight who is separated from her husband, lost one of her sons in a landmine explosion in 2017. She and Intizar Ahmed Saeed, a widow and mother of seven, used to sell vegetables and have turned to collecting and selling plastic bottles to support their children.
Saeed said the money she can scratch from this is not enough to feed her children. "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," she said.