This story appears in the August 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine.

The young woman was carried into the hospital at 9:30 a.m. Twenty minutes earlier she had been hanging laundry when a bomb fell in her courtyard on the outskirts of Taizz, an ancient city in southwest Yemen. A man covered in blood, her cousin, cried as the doctors rushed her to the trauma center.

“Both legs?” he asked when the doctor returned and gestured to show where they would amputate. One leg was shredded; the other had a protruding bone. Both, the doctor confirmed. She was put in an ambulance and taken to another hospital. Then there was silence. The nurses scrubbed blood off the floor and waited for the next patient.

View Images A father holds his baby at the Mother and Child Hospital after the child was treated for a respiratory infection. Doctors and nurses have fled Yemen, leaving hospitals stretched thin. “A lot of my colleagues have already left or are trying to travel to the Gulf states to find a better life,” says one Yemeni doctor working in Sanaa.

The outskirts of rebel-controlled Taizz have endured some of the country's heaviest fighting. For those displaced in this area, home might be a makeshift shelter or rented room.

That night, Matteo Bastianelli, an Italian photographer who’d watched the scene, wrote in his diary about life in Taizz after three years under siege: “Doctors wait, with the thunder of airplanes in their ears and the dust in their eyes, living with the fear that something terrible and irreparable could happen at any moment."

Once known by the Romans as Arabia Felix, “Fortunate Arabia,” Yemen was a strategic port at the entrance to the Red Sea, made rich by spices and scents. Today it’s one of the poorest countries in the world. Until 1990 north and south Yemen were governed separately, and this divide continues to fuel conflict. In late 2014 separatist Houthi rebels seized the capital of Sanaa in an attempted coup. Fearing a regional shake-up, neighboring Saudi Arabia intervened on behalf of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi’s former government. With support from the U.S., the U.K., and nearly a dozen Arab states, a Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign to help Yemen’s government keep its grasp on large swaths of the country.

EUROPE ASIA AFRICA YEMEN CHOLERA CRISIS Since April 2017, more than a million suspected cholera cases have been reported in Yemen. An international blockade and reliance on imported medical supplies have made it difficult to contain and treat the outbreak. Cholera infection rate April 2017–March 2018 Low High SAUDI ARABIA Sadah Sayun Sanaa YEMEN Al Hudaydah Al Mukalla Taizz Ad Dali 100 mi Aden 100 km North and south Yemen were governed separately until the country unified in 1990. Tensions between political factions erupted in 2014, creating what the UN deems the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Area under control or influence As of May 2018 Houthi rebels (supported by Iran) Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and tribal allies Hadi government and other forces (supported by the Saudi-led coalition and allies) Former North-South divide SAUDI ARABIA Sadah Sayun Sanaa YEMEN Al Hudaydah Al Mukalla Taizz Ad Dali 100 mi Aden 100 km CLARE TRAINOR, NGM STAFF SOURCES: RISK INTELLIGENCE; WHO; EUROPEAN COMMISSION, JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE CHOLERA CRISIS Since April 2017, more than a million suspected cholera cases have been reported in Yemen. An international blockade and reliance on imported medical supplies have made it difficult to contain and treat the outbreak. Cholera infection rate April 2017–March 2018 EUROPE OMAN ASIA AFRICA Low High YEMEN SAUDI ARABIA North and south Yemen were governed separately until the country unified in 1990. Tensions between political factions erupted in 2014, creating what the UN deems the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Sadah Sayun Hajjah Amran Marib YEMEN 50 mi Sanaa 50 km Arabian Sea Al Hudaydah Red Dhamar Al Mukalla Sea Ibb Area under control or influence As of May 2018 Ad Dali Taizz Houthi rebels (supported by Iran) Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and tribal allies Aden Bab el Mandeb Africa Hadi government and other forces (supported by the Saudi-led coalition and allies) CLARE TRAINOR, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: RISK INTELLIGENCE; WHO; EUROPEAN COMMISSION, JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE

After three years of fighting, the numbers are stunning: In a nation of nearly 29 million, 22 million Yemenis are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN. Two million have been displaced. At least 10,000 are dead. With the economy and health care system in shambles, Yemenis make desperate decisions to find medical treatment. Some take dangerous cross-country journeys to hospitals run by humanitarian groups; others spend their savings at private clinics. More than half of Yemen’s hospitals are closed or partly functioning, and sometimes administrators must choose between buying medical supplies and fuel for generators. Infectious diseases such as cholera and diphtheria are rampant, reflecting the lack of treated water and other basic government services.

In Ad Dali life goes on despite four years of civil war.

Before 2015 the recently built, five-story white stone building on the outskirts of Taizz was slated to be a hotel. Less than two miles behind a battlefront, it’s now a maternity hospital and trauma center run by Doctors Without Borders. Behind the concrete barrier, malnourished babies are fed, cholera patients recover, and war victims are bandaged: young boys hit with shrapnel while playing in their yards, the hospital’s own night watchman, hit by a shell while shopping.

View Images Long lines to refill canisters are a common sight at gas stations. Since 2015 fuel prices have more than doubled and the country has lost more than 40 percent of its GDP. “The economic disaster is even worse than the killing,” says Radhya Almutawakel, co-founder of the Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, in Sanaa. “People are dying behind closed doors.”

View Images Hundreds of schools like this one in Ad Dali have been destroyed by air strikes. Currently two million school-age children are not enrolled in school.

Doctors and other health workers at public hospitals haven’t been paid since 2016. Humanitarian groups are supporting the health ministry with salaries and supplies. But a Saudi-led coalition blockade on the country’s airports and ports in an attempt to stop supplies from reaching the rebels has arbitrarily delayed or diverted aid shipments, says Kristine Beckerle, with Human Rights Watch, adding that both sides “are weaponizing aid.”

View Images A man walks through Ad Dali, a southern city that has been fought over by Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government since the war began. In the background, a Kalashnikov monument honors the commander who fought off the Houthi.

Since 2017 the country has seen more than a million suspected cholera cases—the worst outbreak in modern history. One NGO ordered a shipment of medication in July 2017. It didn’t arrive until April.

Two boys play among the ruins of a school destroyed by a Saudi-led coalition air strike in Ad Dali. Since the war began, 2,500 schools have been bombed, closed, used for military purposes, or turned into shelters.

View Images A cloud hovers over mountainous northern Yemen. North and south Yemen were unified in 1990, but the historical distinction still sparks conflict. Today the UN has declared Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.