More than 13,100 pregnant women in Yemen’s Taiz were unable to reach maternal care on Oct. 16, when conflict and supply shortages constrained emergency services, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said.
The agency counted just five facilities operating in part among the 27 Taiz hospitals assigned to maternal and newborn emergencies. UNFPA projected 1,500 births over the two weeks after Oct. 16; those women were included among the more than 13,100 unable to access care. At least 500 pregnant women were expected to need emergency obstetric and newborn care.
Fuel shortages, dwindling medical supplies and too few skilled birth attendants had raised care and referral costs, UNFPA said. The agency warned that higher expenses threatened access to reproductive health services. It also said hostilities had blocked potentially life-saving care for more than 147,600 women and girls of childbearing age in the city.
A separate Oct. 30 update on Yemen’s displacement crisis covered conditions nationwide. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported more than 290,000 people displaced across Yemen since August, while UNFPA estimated nearly 6,100 pregnant women were among them. UNFPA said it had deployed mobile teams and midwives to displacement sites and delivered maternal health supplies.
The Oct. 30 briefing also included a projection of 600 births among displaced pregnant women over the following two weeks. That forecast covered the displaced population nationwide and a later period than UNFPA’s Oct. 16 estimate for Taiz.
