Authorities in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province recorded 5,025 cases of illness in October that they linked to accumulating waste in Taiz city, where weeks of fighting have driven 6,400 families to seek refuge, Anadolu reports.

Taiz province’s Office for Siege Affairs said infectious and respiratory illnesses and fevers were among the cases recorded as waste piled up in streets, residential areas and drainage channels.

Ailan Abdel Haq, the province’s deputy governor for health affairs, accused the Houthi group Tuesday of turning back waste trucks before they could unload at a temporary landfill west of the city. Taiz has been unable to access its main landfill for more than 11 years. Abdel Haq urged UN agencies to intervene to get the trucks through and reopen the main site.