Yemen's Displaced Families Skip Meals as Renewed Fighting Deepens Hunger Crisis

More than a decade of war in Yemen has left millions struggling to survive, and a fresh escalation of fighting that began in early September has made an already dire humanitarian situation even worse. Nearly 134,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in recent weeks, according to UNICEF, including an estimated 73,000 children. For families who have already endured years of displacement, the latest violence means one more round of deciding which meals to skip and which children go to bed hungry.

Mohamed Saed, a 46-year-old teacher, knows this reality intimately. He has not received a salary in years, and he and his wife and five children now live in a single room in Taiz after being displaced three or four times since the war began. The family is more than a year behind on rent. When his children call him to the table, he often tells them he has already eaten, even when he has gone without food. "We no longer eat three meals," he told Al Jazeera. "Maybe two meals and sometimes one meal."

The numbers behind Saed's experience are staggering. In a country of roughly 43 million people, more than 18.3 million face acute food insecurity in 2026, according to the United Nations. In government-controlled areas alone, nearly five million people—about half the population there—faced crisis levels of hunger or worse between March and May, including 1.4 million in emergency conditions, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the global standard for measuring hunger. The IPC projected that the situation would deteriorate further during the lean season, with 5.3 million people facing crisis conditions or worse, and even after the harvest, 5.4 million are expected to remain at crisis levels from October through December.

Children are bearing the heaviest burden. UNICEF's Louise Wateridge told Al Jazeera that even before the latest fighting, more than 2.2 million children under five were projected to be acutely malnourished this year, with more than half a million suffering from severe acute malnutrition—the deadliest form. She warned that the conflict is driving a vicious cycle: fighting fuels hunger, and hunger leaves children more vulnerable to the effects of conflict. UNICEF has verified that at least 15 children have been killed and 14 injured since September 3, with three more reported missing.

The latest round of fighting has also redrawn Yemen's front lines. The country has been effectively divided since the Iran-aligned Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. The Houthis control the north and west, where most Yemenis live, while the internationally recognized government, backed by Saudi Arabia, holds most of the south and east. On September 3, the Houthis launched a major offensive west of Taiz, and within days their fighters entered Mocha. They have since taken control of almost all of Yemen's Red Sea coastline, down to the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a critical chokepoint for global shipping.

Saudi Arabia has responded with hundreds of air strikes, and the Houthis have launched drone and missile attacks on Saudi territory. The World Health Organization reports that 838 people have been killed and more than 3,600 injured since early August, when the Houthis began striking government forces. Most of the casualties have occurred since the ground offensive began on September 3, and in the week ending September 26 alone, 164 people were killed.

For families caught in the fighting, escape has meant leaving everything behind. Ruqqaya Saeed, a 25-year-old mother of eight, fled Zaghar in the Maqbanah area west of Taiz, where the Houthi offensive began. She described facing rockets, shells, and the terror of landmines all at once. "We left our homes, and we left our livestock, the donkey and the chickens," she told Al Jazeera from al-Shaqadif camp near Taiz city. "We left everything up to God."

Life in the camp has brought little relief. Saeed says no aid organization has brought her family food, and they survive on what charitable individuals provide. She borrowed money to buy a tarpaulin for shelter, but rainwater has already soaked through it twice, drenching their clothes. Her children are sick with diarrhea, colds, and dysentery. "We don't have water for them, not even clean water," she says. Dysentery, an intestinal infection spread by contaminated water and poor sanitation, can be deadly for young children due to dehydration. With no blankets to keep warm, Saeed says they can only treat their children at home with water, salt, and sugar. The camp has no toilets, so women wait until nightfall and walk to the mountainside or another isolated location.

Enas Abdullah Abdo, a 23-year-old mother of three, fled Hadhran on the second day of fighting. "Every hour, the shelling and clashes on us increased, and then when the shells eventually reached the houses, we were forced to leave," she says. Cars could no longer reach them, so the family set out on foot and walked until they found one. "When we left, we didn't take anything," Abdo says. They departed without kitchen supplies or other essentials, joining the ranks of Yemenis who have lost nearly everything.

The humanitarian implications of the renewed fighting extend beyond immediate displacement and hunger. The World Food Programme and other aid agencies have warned that access to affected areas is increasingly difficult as front lines shift and ports and roads are disrupted. The capture of Yemen's Red Sea coastline by Houthi forces raises concerns about the flow of commercial and humanitarian imports, which enter the country largely through ports along that route. Any prolonged disruption could push more families into crisis levels of food insecurity.

Aid organizations are also struggling with funding shortfalls. The UN's humanitarian appeal for Yemen has been consistently underfunded in recent years, forcing agencies to scale back food assistance and other programs even as needs grow. Wateridge's warning about the vicious cycle between conflict and hunger underscores the stakes: malnourished children are more susceptible to disease, less able to recover from illness, and more likely to suffer long-term developmental consequences. For families like Saed's, the choice between meals is not a matter of preference but of survival.

With no political resolution in sight and front lines continuing to shift, Yemen's displaced population faces an uncertain future. The nearly 134,000 people who have fled since early September join millions who have been displaced multiple times over the course of the war. Each new escalation compounds existing vulnerabilities, eroding whatever coping mechanisms families have managed to preserve. For parents like Saed, who tells his children he is full when he has not eaten, the daily fight for food has become a defining feature of life—one that shows no sign of easing as the conflict grinds on.