Residents of Taiz are grappling with a war that has fully reignited and now arrived, once again, at their doors. Building makeshift shelters in Jabal Zaid displaced persons camp, Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Photo: Khalid Al-Banna.TAIZ, Yemen*—This week, as Ansarallah forces advanced by the hour to seize the port city of Mokha and secure access to the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait off the coast of Yemen, residents of Taiz braced for more fighting.Over the past week, some of the fiercest battles between Ansarallah (also known as the Houthis) and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces took place in the hills surrounding Taiz—a crucial trade hub in southwestern Yemen, situated between Ibb, Mokha, Hodeidah, and Aden.On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia bombed five Yemeni governorates more than 50 times in a single 12-hour span. On Sunday, powerful explosions shook Taiz and several residential areas were shelled. The Yemeni government attributed the explosions to Ansarallah. Ansarallah neither claimed the bombings nor denied them, but the fighting proved decisive ahead of Ansarallah’s capture of Mokha later in the week.Thousands of households from across the Taiz governorate have been displaced since September 3, when a new round of intensified fighting began. Across Yemen, nearly 20,000 have fled their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over the past week, at least 500 have been killed, according to the AFP, most of them combatants. Among the dead and wounded are civilians, including numerous children.Drop Site is always free to read. Subscribe today: Upgrade to paid. Many of the displaced are from Jabal Habashi, a district in the Taiz governorate characterized by greenery, agriculture, and terraced hills. Jabal Habashi has seen the majority of the violence in the area—and its families have experienced among the highest rates of displacement. Because of its strategic position, wedged between Taiz and Mokha, it is a crucial passageway for securing Yemen’s west coast.Yet, as Ansarallah has been increasingly taking hold of the districts surrounding the provincial capital, which is thus far still under the control of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, has attempted to retain a sense of normalcy: Its markets are bustling and people walk the streets, despite the presence of military convoys bringing in injured fighters to its hospitals.“When I heard the explosions I remembered the difficult days of the beginning of the war in 2015,” said Taiz city resident Mohammed Abdulmalik, “and felt with the suffering of the population who witness it nowadays in west Taiz.”Civilian TargetingDrop Site News visited several hospitals in the city of Taiz, including Al Thawra and Al Safwah, speaking with local patients hospitalized with injuries incurred in the ongoing fighting. The aisles of these hospitals were overflowing with patients; the majority of them were injured fighters, although the hospitals are treating civilians as well. Ashraf, a 47-year-old construction worker from the Jabal Habashi district, was injured while attempting to flee his village on Saturday with his family, a day after heavy fighting with shelling broke out around him. (Ashraf is a pseudonym used for his safety.)We were moving in small separate groups to reduce the risk of being targeted, and an explosion went off. I lost consciousness and fainted, and was later evacuated to Taiz.”Ashraf woke up in a hospital surrounded by other wounded civilians, including children. Still sitting in a hospital bed, he told Drop Site, “It is always us civilians who suffer the brunt of this war.”At a private hospital also in Taiz, four injured children were in hospital beds, staying in the same room: three boys and one girl, who was the eldest. The girl and two of the boys were siblings, while the fourth boy was their neighbor.The children’s guardian, their uncle, told Drop Site he had brought them from the Jabal Habashi district to Taiz city after their home was shelled.“On Friday, we all stayed home because the fighting was fierce,” he told us. “But by the afternoon, things had calmed down, and the children went out to play in front of the house as usual. Then we heard an explosion nearby and the screams of other children. We ran out and found the four of them on the floor, bleeding.” He was uncertain whether Ansarallah or the Saudi-backed government forces had caused the explosion, as both had been firing at each other.The uncle said they normally could not afford hospital costs, but an international NGO operating locally funded their stay at the private facility.I just hope they recover and can return home. Their parents are stuck in the village, as leaving is too dangerous right now. So I am taking care of them for the time being.”Families Torn Apart. The Jabal Zaid camp for Internally Displaced People (IDP), nestled between the green valleys of Taiz governorate, is one of several camps that have absorbed at least 5,600 households displaced across the Taiz and Hodeidah governorates in the past week, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Residents here live in makeshift tents built from scant, hard-to-source materials.Rahma, a displaced woman at Jabal Zaid who asked to go only by her first name, told Drop Site News that her family—who were already displaced by fighting a decade ago and living in a different IDP camp—had not only been displaced again, but divided. “When fighting broke out near our [first] camp on Friday, we took our children and fled the area,” she said. “Later that same day, my husband returned to bring our belongings. We waited for him until the next day, but he didn’t come back. We were terrified he might have been killed or injured.”Rahma later learned from neighbors that he was stuck in the middle of the fighting and no one was allowed to leave the area. Five days later, Rahma’s husband was still trapped in the middle of the fighting.  Nujud Mohammed and her children at Jabal Zaid camp on Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Photo: Khalid Al-Banna.Nujud Mohammed, 28, a mother of six also displaced at Jabal Zaid, described a similar rupture. She is originally from Al Barah, a site that has seen heavy clashes due to its position on the supply route connecting Taiz and Mokha, and has been increasingly targeted by Yemeni government forces and allied warplanes attempting to repel Ansarallah’s advance.“I tried to return to retrieve our belongings,” she said, “but the road was blocked. We weren’t allowed to reach our old camp to take anything. Our area is now encircled by fighting, and no one can enter or leave. So I returned with nothing. I praise Allah that we are safe, and I trust that He will compensate us for everything we lost.”For many at Jabal Zaid, the past week is not a first displacement but a second, or third. Nujud’s family fled to Jabal Habashi nine years ago, at the start of Yemen’s civil war, and has lived there ever since.“Nine years ago we fled because of the fighting in our area. We spent nine years in Jabal Habashi, but on Friday, sudden fighting reached our camp. I immediately took my children and walked from the afternoon until sunset, when we finally found a car that brought us to this camp.”Surrounded by her children, the youngest of whom is still a toddler, she cooked flatbread over a fire using plastic basins and a makeshift fire. “It isn’t easy to start over in a new camp, but we have been forced to do so because we have no alternative.”Camp Without Aid: Nujud and her children now share a single tent with three other families, relying on the goodwill of their new neighbors for food, mattresses, and other basic goods. “No humanitarian organizations have arrived yet,” she said. “Only two representatives from a relief agency came to take our names and ask questions, but no aid has been delivered. We are in dire need of shelter and food.”Looking at the temporary tent housing her, she said: “All I want at this moment is for the war to end so I can return.”  Mohammed Ahmed and his family in Jabal Zaid camp, Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Photo: Khalid al-Banna.  Mohammed Ahmed and his family in Jabal Zaid camp, Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Photo: Khalid al-Banna.Mohammed Ahmed, 35, a father in the camp, said his family had expected help to be awaiting them once they reached safety: “We assumed that as soon as we reached a safe area, we would receive support from humanitarian organizations, since we know they cannot reach dangerous frontlines,” where their home is. Indeed, many families chose Jabal Zaid precisely because it is considered a safe area, yet no agency has provided aid there so far.If this situation continues, our children could starve to death, as there are no job opportunities here and no one to help us.”Fawzi Al-Habashi, Director of the Better Life Association for Coexistence and Development, a local humanitarian organization that provides food, shelter, and hygiene assistance, said NGOs “have monitored and documented the displacement movement, conducted initial needs assessments, and coordinated with local authorities, providing limited emergency aid to the most vulnerable families based on priority.”However, as explained by Baraa Shaiban, a Yemeni political analyst who spoke to Drop Site, the suddenness of the displacement, combined with severe funding shortages that have characterized many areas of Yemen (particularly areas controlled by Ansarallah where international aid access has been restricted for years), has hindered the delivery of emergency assistance.The Saudi-led war against Ansarallah that began in 2015 after the group took over Sana’a spawned one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and left over 150,000 dead until an uneasy truce was reached in 2022. Many Yemeni civilians are experiencing the clashes as a return to heightened instability, as they see their lives starting over once again, in yet another displacement camp.As Shaiban put it: “Whatever normality people were hoping to get, it is quickly fading away.” |
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