Residents of Aden (Yemen's southern port city and interim government seat) are waiting up to twelve days between piped water deliveries, forcing families to queue for expensive private tanker trucks, haul jerricans on donkeys, or draw from brackish local wells. Yemen's Deputy Minister for Water says the city requires between 200,000 and 250,000 cubic metres per day but faces a daily deficit of roughly 130,000 cubic metres — a gap traced to ageing infrastructure, unregulated drilling, population growth, and chronic electricity shortages that prevent pumping stations from operating. A government desalination project launched in early 2025 with Saudi funding would, even at full capacity, cover only about four to five percent of daily demand, leaving officials to pursue longer-term financing from the World Bank and private partners while ordinary households pay water bills that can consume more than thirteen percent of a breadwinner's monthly income.