Aid work­ers can­not enter the Yemen city of Saada where over 35,000 peo­ple are trapped due to armed con­flict. The city lacks the water, food and elec­tric­ity needed for those trapped peo­ple. Fight­ing has inten­si­fied between the Yemen gov­ern­ment and Islamic rebels.

The World Heath Orga­ni­za­tion is cur­rently giv­ing out med­i­cine and malaria bed nets to those who have man­aged to escape. The U.N.s World Food Pro­gramme has already had to cut back on food aid in the region due to the violence.

From this Reuters arti­cle, reporter Stephanie Nebe­hay fills us in on the aid emergency.

“We need access to these peo­ple, they lack water and elec­tric­ity. Liv­ing con­di­tions are more and more pre­car­i­ous for the dis­placed and res­i­dents,” said Elis­a­beth Byrs of the U.N. Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­ian Affairs.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR has called for a cease­fire in the lat­est flare-up of fight­ing between Yemen’s gov­ern­ment and Shi-ite Mus­lim rebels, which has dri­ven an esti­mated 100,000 peo­ple from their homes in the north of the Arab country.

“Accord­ing to those who man­aged to flee the besieged city and our staff on the ground, the fight­ing appears to be con­cen­trated in the old Saada city. They also report fre­quent air strikes (in the area),” said the UNCHR’s Andrej Mahecic.

The gov­ern­ment rejected a truce offer by Shi’ite al-Houthi rebels late on Mon­day, after accus­ing the Iran­ian media of stok­ing the con­flict. [IDnL1563997]

Aid agen­cies are now try­ing to arrange a “human­i­tar­ian cor­ri­dor” to get sup­plies into Saada through Saudi Arabia.

Malaria, measles and diar­rhoeal dis­eases pose a seri­ous threat to uprooted peo­ple with­out access to med­ical ser­vices, and areas of north­west­ern Haj­jah province are show­ing high lev­els of malaria, the World Health Organ­i­sa­tion (WHO) said.

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