NEW YORK CITY: Fighting in Yemen has closed every road into the southwestern city of Taiz, cutting off deliveries of goods and pushing its healthcare system toward collapse, the UN said on Monday, as the number of people forced from their homes since August neared 300,000.

“The situation in Taiz city is particularly alarming,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York. “All roads into the city are now closed due to the fighting, and no commercial supplies are getting through.”

Nearly 250,000 people in the besieged city have lost access to essential healthcare, including more than 186,000 children under the age of 5 and 23,000 pregnant women, he said, citing statistics from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Twelve hospitals were at risk of closure or had already cut services because of shortages of fuel and critical supplies, Dujarric added, at a time when more than 1,400 cases of acute diarrhea and suspected cholera had been recorded in a single week.

The latest displacements are in addition to the 5.2 million Yemenis already uprooted before the current escalation in a country with a total population of about 42 million, according to the OCHA. The agency and its health partners were coordinating a 90-day emergency plan to maintain life-saving services, restore disrupted healthcare and strengthen disease surveillance.

Dujarric renewed the UN’s call for all parties involved in the conflict to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, respect international humanitarian law and allow “safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access, including passage into Taiz.”