Notes from an Invisible War
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
GBH
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2017
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Children describing the sounds that bombs make as they fall. Streets covered with rotting garbage. Doctors and nurses who have gone months without pay, at hospitals struggling to care for an influx of cholera patients and malnourished infants.
In Yemen, two-plus years of airstrikes by a coalition being led by Saudi Arabia and receiving weapons and tactical assistance from the United States, have led to what the United Nations has called the “largest humanitarian crisis” in the world. FRONTLINE filmmaker Martin Smith and his team witnessed chaos on a rare trip inside the country, a peek inside a largely invisible war. Few foreign journalists are given permission to enter Yemen.
“People are not seeing what’s going on. We’re talking thousands of civilian dead,” said Smith.
This story is from correspondent Martin Smith. Michelle Mizner and Sara Obeidat produced this story originally as a short film. They, along with Sophie McKibben, adapted the film for the podcast. Scott Anger recorded the sound in Yemen. The reporting for this story was done as part of an upcoming FRONTLINE special on the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Airing in 2018, the documentary will trace the roots of the Sunni-Shia divide, and explore how a proxy war between the two countries is devastating the Middle East.
For more in-depth reporting on the crisis in Yemen – visit pbs.org/frontline.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Rainey Aronson, executive producer of the PBS series Frontline and you're listening to the |
| 0:09.2 | Frontline Dispatch. This time, Notes from an Invisible War. |
| 0:17.0 | The Front Line Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation Journalism Initiative, |
| 0:21.6 | committed to excellence. |
| 0:23.2 | The Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation, committed to excellence |
| 0:27.8 | in journalism, and by the Frontline Journalism Fund with major support from John and Joanne Hagler. |
| 0:34.0 | Support for Frontline Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, |
| 0:38.5 | dedicated to providing the latest therapies and cancer specialists who are experienced in your cancer. |
| 0:43.4 | When you hear the word cancer, their team is ready. |
| 0:46.1 | Learn more at massgeneral.org |
| 0:48.7 | slash cancer. |
| 0:49.7 | It's been around three years since the current war broke out in Yemen. It started when a rebel group, the |
| 0:58.4 | huthies, unseated the president and seized the capital in much of the country. |
| 1:03.8 | A few months later, a Saudi-led coalition began a bombing campaign against them. |
| 1:09.4 | It's thought that more than 10,000 people have died since the conflict began. |
| 1:14.3 | Seven million now face famine. |
| 1:17.2 | It's caused one of the biggest cholera outbreaks |
| 1:20.0 | health officials have ever recorded. And recently, the United Nations declared Yemen the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. |
| 1:28.0 | And yet, for months now, very few foreign journalists have been able to get into the country |
| 1:36.4 | but this may veteran frontline filmmaker Martin Smith and his team were allowed in. |
| 1:43.6 | In this episode of the Frontline Dispatch, |
| 1:46.0 | he gives us a rare look at what he witnessed. When we were in Yemen in May of 2017 we wanted to come in and see the consequences of two plus years of war |
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