The city of Taiz is rapidly emerging as the most important battlefront in Yemen’s reignited civil war, pitting the Iran-allied Houthis against the internationally recognised government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition.
Houthi forces have encircled Taiz in recent weeks by cutting its main road south to Aden, causing widespread displacement and worsening a humanitarian crisis.
Any Houthi victory in Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, would mark one of the biggest turning points in the country’s long civil war, which resumed this summer after a four-year truce.
Taiz city has an estimated population of almost 600,000. Government sources said 80,000 had fled in the latest fighting.
Taiz has been on the frontline between the Houthis and the government since the first days of the conflict that started in early 2015 and has long been seen as a bastion of opposition to the Iran-allied group.
It is the last major urban stronghold of anti-Houthi forces in the southern highland area of Yemen: the rugged hills above both Aden, where the internationally recognised government is based, and the coastal plain around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
A Houthi takeover of Taiz would make it much harder for government forces to maintain their counterattack around Bab el-Mandeb and keep the Houthis at arm’s length from Aden.
It would also mean a resounding symbolic defeat for the government and the military coalition of Saudi-backed Yemeni forces fighting the Houthis.
As fighting in Yemen resumed in recent weeks, the Houthis began making advances to cut off Taiz by seizing territory to the south of Jebel Sabar along the road to Aden, which snakes about 200km through rugged hills where fighting is slow and difficult.
Sections of the road are now under Houthi control, including at the towns of al-Turbah and Mudiriyat al-Misrakh, leaving Taiz encircled since early October, with the Houthis sometimes shelling government positions in and around the city.
Government forces, backed by airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition, are trying to drive the Houthis back from their recent gains and reopen the road, but were still losing ground around Taiz rather than recapturing territory in mid-October.
Inside Taiz, residents have told Reuters about the shortages they now face of basic items and the huge increase in prices they see in the city markets since the Houthis cut the road to Aden.
Aid agencies have reported widespread shortages of fuel, food, medicines and clean water. Wheat flour stocks in the city are nearly exhausted, the World Food Programme said in mid-October.