Taiz Governor Nabil Shamsan declared on Thursday that the Yemeni city has entered famine conditions, not merely approached them, after Houthi forces intensified their siege in early October and fully encircled the city. The move cut off the primary supply route from Aden and left residents without adequate food, water, fuel, medicine, and cooking gas.

Shamsan said the city of about one million people now receives only a fraction of its needed water after Houthi fighters seized the last external source. Cooking gas supplies stopped entirely, forcing restaurants to close and families to burn wood for cooking. Hospitals have nearly exhausted oxygen supplies for patients. The World Food Programme reported it could not reach more than 600,000 people who depend on humanitarian aid, with wheat flour stocks nearly exhausted.

Human Rights Watch said Thursday the siege could amount to the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare. The group noted that Houthi forces have surrounded Taiz since 2015 but escalated the blockade this month by attacking the remaining major road. Shamsan reported 271 people killed and 1,129 wounded since the latest offensive began.

A Saudi airstrike in western Taiz killed at least 13 people on Thursday, according to the Houthi-run health ministry. That followed a Houthi attack on Aden’s airport that injured passengers and halted flights. Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi claimed in a televised address that his forces only block weapons shipments to what he called Saudi-backed militias and that humanitarian aid reaches the city.

The crisis compounds existing problems. The UN World Food Programme previously classified most of Taiz’s districts at emergency levels of hunger. UNICEF screenings this year found more than 52,000 acutely malnourished children in Taiz, including over 11,500 with severe acute malnutrition. The city has also absorbed thousands of displaced people fleeing fighting elsewhere.

Iran-backed Houthi forces control much of northern Yemen and continue to press their campaign against the Saudi-supported Yemeni government. The latest siege has drawn warnings from aid agencies that time is running out to restore access before conditions deteriorate further.