TAIZ — Fuel shortages in Yemen’s besieged city of Taiz have forced the Yemeni-Swedish Hospital for Maternity and Childhood to cut the number of incubators it can operate from 40 to 10, putting newborn babies at risk, according to Reuters.
“There’s no oxygen, there’s no fuel to run the incubators, to keep the babies warm,” Nada Ahmed, a nurse in the hospital’s neonatal unit, told Reuters. Nawal Najeeb, a supervisor in the unit, warned the facility could be forced to halt operations if fuel supplies do not arrive: “It will be a catastrophe for the babies, a catastrophe of deaths and disabilities.”
The strain is citywide. Forty-two health facilities in Taiz are reporting acute shortages of fuel, oxygen, medicines and medical supplies, World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said, according to Reuters.
Taiz has been largely isolated since October 3, with fighting preventing humanitarian supplies from entering and civilians from leaving, following an escalation in clashes between the Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement. Key supply routes, including the Taiz-Aden corridor, have been blocked, and fuel prices in the city have surged to 2,000 Yemeni rials per litre.
Aid agencies say the effects reach beyond hospitals: the World Food Programme says more than 800,000 people have been cut off from food assistance in Taiz and surrounding areas, and UNICEF says 52,000 of the 168,000 children screened in Taiz so far this year are acutely malnourished, including more than 11,500 severely, according to Reuters.
