More than 1.6 million children in Yemen’s Taiz governorate risk losing access to water as fighting and fuel shortages threaten critical services, Anadolu reports citing warnings by UN agencies.

Unicef Representative in Yemen Akhil Iyer tells reporters in Geneva that water systems serving an estimated 3 million people, including at least 1.6 million children, are at risk as fighting disrupts critical supply routes.

“Diesel shortages threaten to bring water pumps to a halt, while the cost of trucked water has tripled since this latest escalation,” Iyer says, adding that over 168,000 children have been screened for malnutrition in Taiz this year, with over 52,000 found to be acutely malnourished, nearly one in three screened.

“For children in Taiz, hunger, unsafe water and disease are becoming an increasingly dangerous combination,” he warns.