Taiz Encircled Again: Supply Roads and Schools on Yemen's Front Line
Houthi forces cut the supply road linking Taiz to Aden on Sunday, effectively encircling Taiz. Yemeni government forces retook positions on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow waterway where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden, and launched an offensive to try to regain the capital, Sanaa, according to the most recent reporting. BBC
The fighting has placed Taiz, Yemen's third largest city, back at the center of a war that began in 2014. In parts of the city, daily movement is shaped by government-held territory on one side and Houthi sniper positions on the other. Supply, displacement and access to schools are tightening at the same time.
Rafeef is 10. She commutes to school with her younger brother. Her school in Taiz stands on a mountain at the edge of a valley described as no-man's land, the empty ground between opposing front lines. The front line divides Yemen's Saudi-backed government forces and Iran-backed Houthis. Government-held territory lies on one side of the school. Houthi sniper positions lie on the other.
Rafeef says she walks uphill to school with her back toward the snipers. She says she is afraid. Her teacher, 45-year-old Abdel Raqeeb al-Obaidi, says the school has been fired on before. Rafeef hopes to become a doctor.
Her family moved to Taiz from the coastal city of Hudaydah nine years ago after Houthis took control there. Rafeef says a mortar attack outside her home two years ago broke her arm and left a scar. Her account is individual. It fits a wider pattern of repeated displacement within western Yemen.
UNICEF reports roughly 3.2 million children in Yemen were out of school even before the war escalated last month. UNICEF says thousands of children have been killed or maimed since the war began in 2014, and thousands more have been recruited by armed groups on both sides. That finding points to government-aligned forces as well as Houthi forces.
The pace of fighting around Taiz quickened in late September and early October. In September 2026, thousands of people fled to makeshift camps as Houthi militants advanced along Yemen's Red Sea coastline. Reuters On October 2, 2026, Yemen's internationally recognized government's military spokesperson said warplanes carried out 20 strikes in the past three hours targeting Houthi targets in Taiz province. Reuters Yemeni government forces later repelled major Houthi assaults in Taiz. Arab News
Taiz Governorate is one of Yemen's most conflict-affected regions. It faces severe problems in education access, including overcrowded classrooms. UNICEF Residents of Taiz told the BBC they live in fear of snipers, shells and landmines. BBC In one earlier case in Taiz, a mortar shattered the skull of a young girl named Asma. That mortar was almost certainly fired by Houthi rebels as part of an eight-month campaign to wrest Taiz. BBC
Schools have continued to operate close to the line of contact. In Taiz, hundreds of children arrive each day for lessons in the ruins of a school near front-line fighting. BBC Abdulwasea Abdu, principal of Musaab Ibn Umayr school in Taiz, tried to keep the school open as long as possible to give children a sense of normality. The Guardian
The system was already degraded before the latest escalation. Nearly half a million children in Yemen dropped out of school since the 2015 escalation of conflict. UNICEF More than 142,000 children have been given access to education through temporary learning spaces, school repairs and school grants. At a school in Al-Azaiz in Taiz, students come from more than 30 areas. UNICEF The Government of Japan and UNICEF Yemen partnered to support education for children in Yemen. Some children in Taiz have been forced to work in the streets.
The broader context here is a battle for corridors, not only terrain. Think of the Taiz to Aden road as the highway that feeds the city. It carries food, fuel, medicine and reinforcements. Its severance raises the cost of holding Taiz for the government and increases leverage for whoever controls access. Government action around Bab al-Mandab and toward Sanaa points to an attempt to widen the front and relieve pressure, rather than a localized defense of Taiz alone.
In my view, the education figures deserve the same attention as the map. A front-line school with sniper exposure on one side and government positions on the other is hard to protect under international humanitarian law, the rules that require distinction between civilians and fighters and care to avoid harm, and both sides face documented allegations of child recruitment. The loss is cumulative. Each closure, displacement and injury narrows future options for a generation that would otherwise enter secondary school, work and public life in the next decade. For watchers of Yemen, the signs to track are whether the Taiz-Aden route reopens, whether airstrikes shift Houthi artillery and sniper deployment around the city, and whether temporary learning spaces can absorb new displacement without collapsing attendance further.
