Yemen girl married to elderly man as Taiz maternal hospital could shut

A 14-year-old girl named Safa was married to an elderly man a few weeks ago by her father, who feared that no one would protect her if he were killed in the fighting. Francesco Galtieri, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative in Yemen, described her case to journalists in Geneva on Tuesday, speaking by video link from Aden, UN News reported on 3 November 2026.

Galtieri called the marriage an example of the impossible choices some families face, with particularly severe consequences for girls. He said war strips away protection at every turn.

Displacement and risk

Galtieri said fighting in parts of Yemen has intensified to levels not seen since 2020. Displacement from the west coast and Taiz has tripled, he said, and nearly 300,000 people have been driven from their homes. More than half of them are women and children, and more than a third of the displaced families are headed by a woman.

In the displacement sites, UN News reported, women and girls face heightened risks of sexual violence, harassment, exploitation, and forced and child marriage. These threats are also wearing down their mental and psychosocial health.

Pregnancy in Taiz

According to UN News, midwives in Taiz city are among the first to see the toll. They report that severely malnourished pregnant women are living on one meal a day or at most two, mostly tea, bread and plain rice. Miscarriages are rising, and more women are giving birth at home without safe care.

Of the more than 13,000 pregnant women in the Taiz area, about 6,400 have been displaced. UNFPA expects roughly 1,500 obstetric emergencies among those displaced women. It attributes them to the strain of walking to safety while pregnant, carrying children and whatever belongings could be saved. Galtieri said no woman should have to risk her life giving birth in a war zone.

A strained hospital

At the Swedish Motherhood and Childhood Hospital, the main maternal care facility in Taiz city, deliveries have halved from ten a day to about five. Incubators for premature babies have fallen from 40 to ten because of a lack of fuel. Night admissions have dropped to almost zero, since insecurity and shelling keep women from traveling and health workers struggle to reach the wards.

Galtieri warned that unless access restrictions are lifted in the coming days, the hospital could shut. Across Taiz, only five of 27 designated emergency maternal and newborn hospitals are even partially functioning. UNFPA estimated that before this escalation, three women died in childbirth every day in Yemen, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the Arab region.

UNFPA and its partners are working where access allows. Some 129 community midwives seek out pregnant women in the areas they cover, and five mobile teams provide reproductive health and protection services. Galtieri said the needs of women and girls are too often the first to be overlooked and the last to be heard, and that their voices must not vanish behind the statistics of war.

UN News gives no date for any lifting of the access restrictions.