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Yemen is at war.

Taiz city is under siege

‘Aim higher’

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia are fighting the Houthi alliance

Smuggling routes are the only way in.

The humanitarian crises in Taiz is dire

‘Everything is banned.

Sugar, rice, flour, even Khat is banned!

And the options for survival are fast disappearing.

Dr. Ahmad: ‘If you survive the mortars of death, you die from the lack of oxygen.

‘Shooting’?

shooting

‘the fighting is in the street, our advancement 4 or 5 houses is an achievement’

But who are those fighting to break the siege on taiz?

and what forces are they unleashing?

‘We are stuck either with the Houthis or the other side, ISIS. This is a big problem.

FILM TITLE

YEMEN UNDER SIEGE

Yemen is a hard country to enter.

Safa boat shots

Since March of last year the Saudi led coalition has blockaded Yemen.

This was the only way in.

A day and a half on a merchant’s boat from Djibouti to Aden.

.

NOV 2015

My name is Safa AlAhmad and I am heading to Yemen’s third biggest city, Taiz, now under siege.

I arrive in the Southern port of Aden.

Aden is now in the hands of the elected Government and the Saudi led coalition - but still bears the scars of war.

Two hours north is the latest frontline against the Houthi alliance.

Map

I am joining Yemeni fighters working with the coalition. It is only 40km from the besieged city of Taiz.

Aden destruction

Safa: where did it come from?’

Man:‘the houthis just hit here.

They hit us from there towards our location. We should withdraw now’

Safa:’so they hit close’

‘Yes they hit us from far away

but maybe they will hit here next’

Old man talking to me at the front after mortar attack

The Houthis, who adhere to a branch of Shia Islam, are rebels who seized control of much of northern Yemen including the capital Sanaa.

Along with forces loyal to ex president Al Abdullah Salah, They tried to take Aden last year but were pushed back in August.

I visited the frontlines from the coalition side several times to see how the war is advancing.

Car drives by road

Abdul Barri, is a Yemeni commander on the front in Karsh.

Safa: ‘I hear live fire now. What is…

AB: yes there is fighting now using heavy weapons. We are hitting them and they are hitting back.

This is ‘Central’ mountain’

AB: ‘This is a mortar attack, a good shot.’

He and his men have been fighting for months but they have hardly advanced.

Today, they are launching an attack on houthi alliance positions on the next hill called ‘Central’.

AB: stay on target, hit them on the head.

Wait I will calculate the distance for you.

AB: ‘aim higher. Go four metres higher’

AB sitting on the rock near tank firing

The Houthi alliance have dug in.

13 brigades of army units allied to former President Abdullah Ali Saleh, and hundreds of irregular Houthi fighters are surrounding Taiz.

The coalition fighting the Houthi alliance is led by Saudi Arabia with troops from the United Arab Emirites, Bahrain, Sudan, Egypt and others

AB: ‘The area is empty, tell Anees to let the group go ahead.

The Yemeni fighters here joining them are not part of a trained army, they are all volunteers.

AB: ‘send men to the location and tell them to advance. Did the first group advance? Go ahead and send someone to them’

With heavy cover fire, Abdul Barri sends a small team of men up to the Houthi position.

But the team is pinned down

More tank shelling

AB: ‘the shooting is very heavy. Our boys couldn’t lift their heads.’

‘stay bunkered in. We will send two vehicles now.

Hello Abu Khalid.

Call ‘uncle’ fathil

and ask where are the two vehicles?

He calls the UAE troops for help as they have armoured vehicles with heavy machine guns.

The Emirates are leading the coalitions combined land forces in the South, with around 4000 foreign troops.

They are also providing training, armoured vehicles and weapons.

UAE dude talking to Anees: ‘They should not rush to ‘Central’ mountain.

They should take it slow.

Are you in touch with your men?

Anees: ’Yes’

UAE: ’but be careful, you must be in touch with ‘scorpion’ whenever you stop inform them.

In the week before we arrived the coalition opened 3 new fronts to try and break the Houthi alliance encirclement of Taiz.

These were backed by thousands of Saudi aerial attacks across Yemen.

But the Houthi alliance proved surprisingly resilient, with heavy casualties on both sides.

Injured man: ‘These are minor injuries, God willing nothing major.

Safa: Will you return to the frontline?

Injured: God willing the day I leave the hospital I will return.

No matter what they do we will not withdraw, we will chase them to Marran (mountain), to their caves.

Until we cleanse this land from those Rawafidh (Shia)

Small room near frontline

We have repeatedly tried to get official access to the coalition troops but were denied.

As I was trying to enter this military base, we accidently met Sudanese soldiers guarding it-

They didn’t want to be filmed.

Sudanese?

Upsound fighting AQ

They were not the only ones who didn’t want me to film.

Safa: What is wrong?

Man far away: She is a journalist and we must respect her.

AQ: We said for her to step back. We didn’t say hit her. Tell her to step back

Angered by the presence of a woman at the frontline, a group of al Qaeda fighters start an argument

Safa: Who are they?

They don’t want me to be here?

Man4: Those are Ansar Alsharia (AQAP).

Man: they don’t want you to be here.

Al Qaeda are fighting on the coalition side to increase their influence in Yemen and to spread their extremist brand of Sunni Islam.

This is forbidden.

AQ: The media.

We don’t accept them. We don’t accept you.

On religious grounds we do not accept you!

Safa: What did he say? ‘On religious grounds we do not accept you’?

Man: They are (ISIS)

Man: No they are not

Man2: They are worse than ISIS, we can’t coexist with them.

There are a disparate local groups fighting along side the coalition including – Salafis, Secessionists, and al Qaeda with different motivations for fighting.

Man2: Islam does not allow for people to be overly strict.

We must be moderate. But we have a group here who are strict.

Safa: but you fight together at the frontline?

Man: For sure, in the front we are together.

While these groups are now fighting together, they have doubts about what will happen after the war.

TRAVEL TO TAIZ MOUNTIANS

Bumpy roads

Taiz has been under siege by the Houthi alliance for months – with the population cut off from the rest of the country.

I am heading into the city of Taiz.

A trip that once took only two hours from Aden now takes all day.

The journey into the besieged city of Taiz is a dangerous,

crossing fast shifting frontlines.

This path has become the last resort for fighter and civilian alike to enter the city.

Long convoys of donkeys carry daily goods up the mountain.

A smuggling route for food, oil, wood, medicine

And weapons.

What used to be the third biggest city in Yemen, now lies desolate and broken.

Shooting

Man: Stay close to the wall. Resistance guy: Stop here. Film from where you are.

The local fighters take me to the edge of the city where they are trying to break the siege.

That sounds like a tank that just fired.

Yes, a tank.

These are mortars here,

one, two and three at the end of the street.

Let’s step back because of the mortars.

RES: When civilians gather in one place they become a target

In Taiz 400,000 people have become internally displaced. The highest in Yemen.

Civilians trying to flee in their car. Gun shots

The basic standards of living have disappeared from the city. Even the main water supply is cut off.

Long queues of mostly children form every morning to get a few liters of water.

Destruction shots

Schools have been closed for months.

Boy playing soccer amid destruction.

Safa: How much school have you missed?

Boy: 2 or 3 months.

Education is extinct in Yemen.

I meet Abdullah, who has refused to leave his home even though its in the line of fire between the local fighters and the houthi alliance.

Abdullah:

There is fear, we worry. You hear the mortars?

They fall near us.

Safa: you live here alone?

AD: I live with my entire family.

Safa: And how are you living?

AD: Come in and see.

Safa: with no water or anything?

AD: There is no water, no electricity, there is nothing.

but we thank God.

Abdullah’s home was repeatedly last august – and is now barely standing.

Descriptive

(sound of a child)

AD picks up child and kisses him

Shooting

Sound of woman praying sounding scared.

Safa: He got used to it?

AD: yes, he got used to it.

Bunny eating. Shooting in background

Islam in shot yawning

Safa: What is that?

A plane?

Islam pointing at the sky.

‘shooting’

Safa: are you afraid of the shooting?

Abdullahs sister in law Um Islam is more willing to show how terrified she is of this war.

Islam’s mother picks him up

Um Islam: ‘One day my friend came to say goodbye.

I asked why?

She said she may die.

Later, a mortar hit her, her daughters and their neighbours.

Seven people died.

I didn’t get to see them, they just buried them. As if they just left the country.

No one visits their neighbours anymore in this war.

Going up the stairs to the roof top

Top shot of Abdullah by himself.

Top shots of destroyed homes

Hospital establishing shots

The casualties of this war have few options.

Pain shots upsound

Al Thawra hospital has the only trauma unit left in the city. Which receives all of the war casualties

Safa: Are you in pain?

Mukhtar: Extreme pain.

Painful operations have to be performed on conscious patients.

Dr.:

He was shot in the leg causing huge loss of tissue.

He has been in the hospital for over three weeks. Because of the lack of oxygen. It should have been closed the third or fifth day.

The trauma unit needs at least 30 canisters of oxygen a day– but they are only receiving 3 or 4.

Dr. Ismael is trying to make do.

Dr: When we lost hope oxygen would come

we were forced to close it this way.

As you can see the patient is in pain. We the surgeons feel the pain too.

Oxygen is vital to put the patients under general anaesthetic. So they must be rationed to the most critical cases.

Patients in the OR

Bleeding, shrapnel to the chest

Mukhtar was not one of the lucky ones.

We are done. We are done Mukhtar. Please forgive me.

Mukhtar: May God forgive you and reward you.

There used to be 20 hospitals in Taiz, now only 4 are partially functioning to serve the remaining population of 400,000.

Shots of empty hospital rooms.

‘There is no oxygen.

Dr. Abu Dhar is head of the trauma unit.

When he can, he also performs surgeries on non-trauma patients.

For people who are ill, this unit is their last resort.

Washing hands

Walking into OR room

operation

Today,

he is performing a vain transplant for a Kidney failure patient.

But it is a risky procedure.

Dr. AT IV: ‘I am afraid. I told him to go to Sanaa or Ibb

he said he has no money.

And he can’t get out of the city.

On Thursday he cried a lot, what can I do?

AT (ENG): ‘I don’t want to speak in Arabic in front of him because he has high blood pressure, 210/100.

Arabic:

Of course it may cause an artery to explode which would make speaking difficult.

Patient: I want to do a transplant.

Dr. Abu Dhar:

We will do a transplant for you, if the war ends if the Coalition keep their promise and rebuild.

God willing if the they keep their word. Not just bomb us.

Dr. eating breakfast, cleaning up the table

The hospital has lost over 70% of its staff.

Despite the crisis, the Government in Aden has cut the hospital’s budget.

Dr. Ahmad, is preparing to do the rounds in the recovery ward on the surgical patients.

He doesn’t just blame the houthi alliance for the siege.

He says all sides have abandoned them.

‘We are in a state of austerity. Austerity in everything.

Safa: And you are in a war.

Dr. Ahmad: and we are in a war.

Safa: and the budget?

‘The hospital budget has been reduced by %50, despite that we have to buy everything from the black market, medicine, diesel, other medical equipment. That is if we can find them.

This man was hit by shrapnel the night before in the abdomen.

Dr. Ahmed:

They were going to operate on him today but because of lack of oxygen we couldn’t.

His situation is critical.

Safa: Is he likely to survive?

Dr. Ahmed: Very unlikely.

If you survive the mortars of death, you die from the lack of oxygen.

Children are some of the biggest victims of this war.

Dr. Ahmad: ‘This is Asmaa. We operated on her yesterday and thank God today her vitals are good. She needs to stay on the respirator.

She may have to stay long on it.

This will need a lot of oxygen.

6 year old Asmaa’ survived a mortar attack on a water tank as she and other children while queuing for water.

5 of the 23 children were killed.

God willing she will survive.

Safa: She survived yesterday.

Dr. X: ‘She survived yesterday

God willing she will survive tomorrow’.

Wide shots of Taiz

The outcome of the war depends on who controls the hilltops and the high ground around the city.

Safa: Houthis on the hilltop?

No, the resistance.

The Houthi alliance control the main entrances of the city.

More info seige

They decide who and what can come in or out. Inflicting collective punishment on the entire population.

We only see the civilians,

but the Houthis have a checkpoint behind the hill. If we saw them of course we would shoot them.

Everything is banned, you can only walk through, everything is banned.

Sugar, rice, flour, even Qat is banned!

The siege has driven some residents of Taiz to join the fight.

We were forced into this war.

I am a pharmacist, but I came out to fight because this does not please God or his prophet.

The Houthi alliance allow just a trickle of goods into the city.

Food prices skyrocket.

Man: We waited an hour to get in a kilo of tomatoes

Man2: They took my tomatoes. But they let me bring in onions and potatoes.

Safa: how was the checkpoint?

woman: They were searching us as if we were in Rafah (Palestine) not Yemen.

It’s not just who can get into the city but also but who can leave.

Mohamed says his mother has become mentally disturbed from the war. Talking to herself and constantly trying to get away.

‘She wants to leave.

Come back and sit here.

Safa: She wants to leave?

Yes. She wants to run away by any means.

She wants to go to her family in the village

Safa: You can’t reach the village?

No we can’t. The situation has become very difficult. I used to work in a factory but it closed in April.

All of a sudden all the problems have piled over our heads.

We have no gas or anything.

We use wood to cook and make our tea.

You see how we live.

What else can we say?

We say thank God. He cursed us

and he is the only one who can us.

This is the man who many in Taiz are depending on -

Hamoud AlMikhlafi, the leader of the anti Houthi resistance in Taiz.

Mikhlafi: The fighting is on the streets, in the neighbourhoods. It’s not in the open. And our advancement of 4 or 5 houses is considered an achievement.

We only have Kalashnikovs, we are surrounded as you can see.

We can’t even get medicine in.

This is what we are facing at the moment.

Safa: Are there snipers here?

Man: Yes, From that direction

The coalition is funding the Taiz local fighters with weapons, but despite this they are feeling outnumbered and out gunned.

This is our problem.

weapons and ammunition is not enough.

If you are giving us canons, 6 for example (106 or 105 type) the enemy has three hundred of them. This is the comparison.

Despite several attempts by the international community at peace talks there is little hope.

The resistance does not want a political solution, I think power is the solution.

Back in the hospital

Dr. Abu Dhar is visiting patients in the recovery ward.

Try to move your leg

Can you feel it?

In the past five years Dr. Abu Dhar has witnessed revolution, wars and the disintegration of his society.

He sees a worrying trend.

Dr. Abdu Dhar: ‘We are now between a rock and a hard place, we are either with the Houthis or the other side, ISIS. This is a problem. I hope people here won’t condone extremism.

I don’t think they will expand here, because people here are kind.

But the future…

This young man used to live in his neighbourhood.

He has now joined a jihadi group

Dr. AT: ‘where are you these days? He used to be in our neighbourhood!

How are you? Where do you work?

Boy: here and there.

Dr. AT: ‘but you are young, how old are you now?

15 years old.

Dr. AT: ‘I am upset for you because he was from my neighbourhood and he is young.

Take care of yourselves.

This is why I hate war. This is the result.

The security guard in the hospital says the war has become futile.

Security guy Salman:

‘I will not fight with anyone. I used to go fight from the hospital, but now I will not go with anyone’

‘they (the resistance) are playing with people’s lives, they are martyred for what? To free Taiz.

But I swear it will not be free.

They buy and sell people’s lives and we are the ones who die.’

An injured fighter arrives.

Shot in the chest by a sniper.

Itshahad (say your last rights)

He is rapidly loosing blood

Dr Abu Dhar is called urgently to try and save his life

Dr. AT: ‘quickly

I need silence.

The heart has stopped.

The heart is beating again

It is over. It has been over ten minutes.

Done.

He got his chance.

Despite all the doctors efforts,

The young fighter Munif is dead.

Prayer, Qura’n recital:

‘Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds.
The Compassionate, the Merciful. Ruler on the Day of Reckoning.
You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help.
Guide us on the straight path,
the path of those who have received your grace;
not the path of those who have brought down wrath, nor of those who wander astray.

A few weeks after I leave Taiz…

The little girl from the hospital, Asmaa is smuggled out through this same route in an attempt to save her life.

But Asmaa dies just after getting to Aden

TEXT ON BLACK

On Friday 11^th of March, after 8 months, the siege of Taiz was broken.

The war continues.

THE END