Hospitals in the besieged Yemeni city of Taiz have been crippled by a fuel shortage. The situation is so serious that one hospital has had to cut the number of incubators for newborns from 40 to just 10.
This has put the lives of premature and sick babies at risk. Shortages of oxygen, medicines and medical supplies are also worsening, Reuters reported on Monday, October 26.
Nada Ahmed, a nurse in the neonatal unit of the Yemeni-Swedish Hospital in Taiz, said: “There is no oxygen, no fuel to run the incubators, and no way to keep the babies warm.”
Nawal Najib, the unit’s supervisor, warned that the hospital could shut down if no fuel arrives, putting newborns at risk of death and permanent disability.
The report said Taiz has been largely cut off since October 3. Escalating clashes between Yemeni government forces and the Iran-backed Houthi movement are blocking humanitarian aid from getting in and civilians from leaving the city.
With key supply routes, including the Taiz-Aden corridor, closed, shortages of food, water and fuel have grown worse. According to the UN, about half of the 250,000 people displaced by the recent fighting have taken shelter in Taiz city.
World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said 42 health facilities in Taiz face severe shortages of fuel, oxygen, medicines and medical supplies.
A local driver, Abdullah al-Radfani, told Reuters that a litre of fuel in the city now costs 2,000 Yemeni rials.
Rising fuel prices have made it harder for ordinary people to get treatment. Fatma Jaffer Shotah, policy and media manager at Oxfam Yemen, said one kidney patient has had to stay two nights at a treatment centre because they cannot afford the regular journey. A trip that used to cost about half a dollar now costs about $10.
The crisis has spread beyond Taiz. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said fuel shortages are disrupting power at hospitals and primary health centres in the southern provinces of Aden and Lahj, affecting operating theatres and intensive care units.
Alongside the fuel crisis, food shortages and malnutrition are becoming severe. According to the World Food Programme, more than 800,000 people in and around Taiz have been cut off from food aid.
UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires said that of 168,000 children screened in Taiz this year, 52,000 are acutely malnourished, more than 11,500 of them severely.
UNICEF has stockpiled about 8,000 cartons of special life-saving therapeutic food, enough by its estimate for about three months of treatment.
But insecurity and movement restrictions could make it hard to deliver these supplies and to bring malnourished children to treatment centres in future.
MSF said families fleeing fighting in the north and on the west coast are making child malnutrition in southern Yemen worse.
Between September 15 and October 22, its mobile clinics in Aden and Lahj screened 299 children under five. Of them, 44, or 14.7 percent, had moderate acute malnutrition and 28, or 9.4 percent, had severe acute malnutrition. Children with severe malnutrition need hospital treatment.
Sara Ghanem, manager of MSF’s mobile health activities, said: “Everywhere we go each day, we see at least one or two children with severe acute malnutrition.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report