Doctors of the World responds as Yemen’s healthcare system nears collapse

22.3 million people across the country need urgent humanitarian aid. Escalating conflict between Houthi forces and Yemen’s government, and subsequent airstrikes from Saudi Arabia, are causing the mass-displacement of more than 250,000 people, confirms World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations (UN).

Doctors of the World has conducted rapid needs assessments in the most critically impacted regions, and deployed staff, medical units and aid supplies. Support remains focused to Ashat’s central hospital, where major shortages in equipment and medicine remain.

The History of Conflict

The crisis we see today has been growing for decades.  

In 2004, the Houthi movement launched an insurgency against the central Yemeni government, due to long-running economic, political and social unrest. Since then, the two sides have been locked in a battle for power. Despite UN-brokered truces, cease-fire agreements, and intervention, civil war has continued between these opposing groups.

Civil war broke out in 2014, when Houthi forces seized the capital, Sana’a. Fighting has now escalated again as the Houthis advance.

In Taiz city, in the country’s southwestern region, Houthi forces have cut central supply routes. The population’s access to food, clean water and aid has been largely destroyed. With much of the country already facing food insecurity, and acute levels of disease transmission reported at health centres, the humanitarian situation is critical.

Our Operational Response

The nation’s healthcare system is under immense strain without the frontline personnel or resources to meet this unprecedented need. 

This recent escalation requires an emergency response from medical organisations, and Doctors of the World was quick to mobilise operations and staffing. As hundreds of health facilities are forced to close without the funding to remain operational, and those remaining open run out of fuel, oxygen and medical supplies, our delivery and distribution is essential.  

Displaced people, of which there are over 250,000, remain the highest priority. Our deployed operations have been urgently assessing impacted regions, distributing aid and sanitation equipment, and supplying facilities with medicine.  

Since 2007 we’ve been present. As the need has elevated in recent months, our doctors and nurses have been witnessing the national crisis.  

Now, we are calling on our UK Government to recognise this too.  

Routes for medical aid must be opened, aid cuts must be reversed, health workers operating in-country must be protected, and ceasefires must be agreed and held firm.