Yemen's Taiz: burning rubbish piles up as siege blocks waste disposal

Residents of Taiz, Yemen, are living with uncollected rubbish and black smoke from waste they set alight, as a Houthi siege, fuel shortages and fighting prevent sanitation trucks from reaching the city's main landfill.

The smoke hangs over the Usaifira area north of the city, and foul odours spread through nearby neighbourhoods. Along the al-Saeed stream, bags of household waste have piled up from lower Tahrir Street down to Usaifira.

Waste has been building up since early October, when sanitation trucks stopped reaching the landfill in western Taiz, controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi forces. The Houthis have besieged the city for a month, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Fighting escalated on October 5, when forces of Yemen's internationally recognised government, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, launched an offensive to retake areas under Houthi control.

Sanitation workers say snipers have been deployed near the landfill, and that staff have come under gunfire more than once while trying to empty their trucks. An acute fuel shortage has also hampered collection, so rubbish has accumulated on streets and in storm drains. Desperate residents have set the waste on fire.

Residents trapped between waste and smoke

Taiz produces between 550 and 600 tonnes of waste a day — about 16,500 to 18,000 tonnes a month. Mohammed Ibrahim, director of a cleaning initiative in Taiz, told Al Jazeera that collection has been severely affected since October 5, with funding cuts and disrupted supplies also hampering the work.

Abdo Hadi, a resident of Usaifira, said the smoke and smell are harming families. “This causes us suffocation and diseases, young and old. The children suffocate from the smoke,” he told Al Jazeera. “It is a foul smell, and on top of that they burn it.” He added: “We are besieged from every side, [with] neither gas nor petrol, and a black market.”

A sanitation worker emptying a truck in Usaifira described the situation bluntly: “We are here with the rubbish in the Usaifira stream because of the war, and the people here are exposed to diseases from the rubbish, and we pile the waste in the stream, leave it to God.”

Aid blocked as health system nears collapse

On October 20, Laurent Bukera, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, voiced deep concern over the “rapidly deteriorating humanitarian and economic situation in Taiz”. He warned that road closures and insecurity were keeping out vital supplies including fuel, leaving the health system “close to collapse”. Water production has halved and alternatives are running out, he said, calling on the Houthis to open safe passage for commercial goods, food, medicine and aid in areas they control.

The World Food Programme says the conflict has cut off lifesaving assistance to 800,000 people in Taiz, including 600,000 who depend on aid there. Its Yemen representative and country director, El-Khidir Daloum, said: “We are critically concerned about the escalating conflict, but even more so about the growing number of people we can no longer reach because of it.” He warned the situation could “rapidly spiral into a humanitarian catastrophe” if assistance cannot move safely.

Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said access roads had been cut, meaning very little fuel, food or supplies had reached the city. Water production had fallen dramatically and the cost of trucked water had tripled, he said.

UNICEF said it screened more than 168,000 children in Taiz this year and found more than 52,000 acutely malnourished. Spokesman Ricardo Pires said access constraints and disrupted supply routes make it harder to transport supplies and for families to reach treatment.

Source: Al Jazeera.