Original subtitles

Welcome to Global Eye, bringing you investigations

that are making an impact around the world,

and stories of resilience and hope.

I'm Nawal Al-Maghafi and this week, we're in Yemen.

Coming up on the programme...

Yemen's third-largest city is on a crucial front line

between Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government forces,

where children walk to school in the crosshairs of snipers

as the two sides battle for control of the country.

GUNFIRE

We can hear a drone above,

and we've been told that it's a Houthi drone,

so we're just taking cover.

And then we'll take a deeper dive into this violent power struggle.

The conflict seems to have demonstrated

to the entire international community

that weaker military powers can still hold their own

in a broader global conflict.

We'll bring you the story of an island so biologically unique

that it's home to species found nowhere else on Earth,

and the man whose imprisonment there

transformed him into an expert on its extraordinary wildlife.

It's known as the City of Snipers.

But in this war,

the Houthis' advance on Taiz is more intense than ever before.

This beautiful mountainous region

is key to the Houthis maintaining the significant gains

they've made along the western coast,

where they now control the crucial Bab al-Mandab Strait.

And this terrain is where they're at their best.

We've spent a week in Taiz, where the conflict coexists

alongside the city's schools, its hospitals, mosques...

Civilians often paying the ultimate price

in a war that's endured for over a decade.

After four years of relative calm,

the battle between Iran-backed Houthi rebels

and the Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia,

has erupted once again, this time with global ramifications.

We're on our way to Taiz, which is at the heart of this battle.

It's a key mountainous city that sits between

the Houthi-held north and the government-held south.

The Houthis have never been able to take this city,

but this time they're closer than ever

and the battle is intensifying.

I've been reporting on the conflict for over a decade,

but never have I seen the Houthis this powerful and emboldened.

If they take this city,

they would control more of the Yemeni population than ever before.

And now over a million people

who are trapped in the shadow of these mountains

face the prospect of a humanitarian disaster.

It's late by the time we arrive to Taiz.

While the threat of violence and fighting looms,

the people here are determined to live.

SHOUTING

And the first scene we come across is one we least expect.

Yousef is getting married and the excitement is infectious.

THEY LAUGH AND CHAT

He allows us to tag along to the celebrations.

As per Yemeni tradition,

the men are celebrating the groom before delivering him to his bride

to begin a new chapter of their lives together.

For this family, tonight, the war can wait.

The next morning, in the mountains that surround the city,

the battle is waiting for no-one.

Armed and ready,

these soldiers are heading to the front line,

and they're taking us with them.

For weeks now, government forces have been fighting

to hold back advancing Houthi soldiers.

The fighting has been relentless,

forcing those who lived in these villages to flee.

The sound of artillery echoes constantly,

and the threat is very close.

GUNFIRE

The Houthis are based just behind this mountain, and...

Drones. Yeah. The drone?

Where?

I can hear the buzzing of the drone.

Is this a Houthi drone or a government drone?

Hit the deck. Hit the deck.

DRONE BUZZES

Spread out, spread out. Spread out.

We can hear a drone above,

and we've been told that it's a Houthi drone,

so we're just taking cover.

It's a Houthi surveillance drone.

They're usually followed by an attack.

Go up the pathway there

and come straight down to the road to the cars.

OK. Come on. Here we go. Here we go.

Go, go, go, go.

As we retreat from the front line,

army troops head into the line of fire.

They don't know if they'll ever return.

The Houthis are a formidable force in mountainous terrain,

and this is a bloody war.

One of the soldiers that escorted us was killed two days later.

SIREN WAILS

By nightfall in Taiz,

it's one ambulance after another racing towards the city's hospital.

Here, we're confronted with the human cost of this battle.

And while the losses are mounting on the front line,

so too are the civilian casualties.

Amjad is just 11 years old and he's fighting for his life.

He's yet another young innocent victim of a Houthi attack.

Amjad's mum is still on her way from the village,

but the doctor doesn't think that she'll make it in time.

NAWAL SNIFFS

Taiz is one of Yemen's most populated cities.

Despite violent fighting for more than a decade,

the Houthis' advance towards the south has always stopped here.

They've never managed to take control of the city centre.

But now their troops have consolidated

in the mountains around Taiz

and the final road into the city - its main artery -

is now under their control.

CHILDREN SHOUT AND LAUGH

And the one million people who live here are trapped.

War now touches every aspect of life.

CHILDREN SHOUT

Even here at the Al Esmat school,

where the children play in the crosshairs of Houthi snipers.

CHILDREN SHOUT AND CHATTER

They're risking their life for an education.

Beyond the school's perimeter is a no-man's land -

the fighting often reaching the fence line.

I meet Mr Abdulraqeeb. He's a maths teacher,

but he's also responsible for the school's security.

Oh, really? OK. I think we need to get off this roof.

If our security is saying we need to get off...

If they see that glint... OK. Let's go. ..from over there,

..they'll think that's a sniper. OK. Let's go.

He's obviously here every single day,

and he's feeling very confident,

but if the snipers are positioned just over there,

we shouldn't be on this roof.

The school is full of children.

It's hard to believe it's in the line of fire.

Their laughter and play drowns out the sound of artillery.

CHILDREN CHATTER

GUNFIRE

CLASS CALLS OUT A GREETING

The girls here are ten years old,

and they've never known anything but war.

All of them have a different story to share.

Rafeef tells me about the attack she was caught up in.

For Rafeef's father, Abdulqawi, it's no easy decision

to send his daughter to school every day.

She has to walk with her back to the Houthi gunmen

because they live just half a kilometre away

from sniper positions.

After school, we meet them in a local cafe.

And as you walk around their neighbourhood,

it becomes clear why he's so afraid.

The scars of war are everywhere. Bullet holes and shrapnel damage

mark the streets Rafeef walks to school.

Down in the valley, just by their house,

it's even more dangerous.

We're told four people were shot in just 24 hours.

Nowhere in the city is safe for children.

SHE PRAYS

MONITORS BEEP

Amjad is still fighting for his life.

His mother arrived from the village eight hours later.

Doctors tell us his heart stabilised as soon as she reached his bedside.

But his journey to recovery will be long and complicated.

Scenes like this are all too common,

and even for the doctors and nurses that work here,

the familiarity has done little to soften the horror.

She holds the shoes of three-year-old Ahmed.

He was killed in the same attack.

His mother will never see her son again.

BAND PLAY, PEOPLE SING

The city of Taiz has endured so much for over a decade,

and it refuses to surrender.

SINGING CONTINUES

Tonight is a celebration.

It's the anniversary of Yemen becoming a republic,

something the Houthis reject.

MAN SPEAKS OVER LOUDSPEAKER, CROWD RESPOND IN UNISON

For one night, the streets come alive.

Their posters read,

"Taiz is a graveyard for those who try to invade it."

FIREWORKS EXPLODE

This may be a city surrounded by war,

but its people refuse to be defeated by it.

For more than 2,000 years, Yemen has been at the crossroads

of trade between Africa, Asia, and the wider world.

The war surrounding the people of Taiz has a long history

shaped by the politics and geography of the region.

In order to understand what's happening now in Yemen,

we need to look at where Yemen is located,

who its neighbours are and what experiences

have shaped people living on both sides of the war.

We need to start with these two narrow stretches of water.

Both are key shipping routes that are interconnected.

The US-Israeli war with Iran

has already interrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

And the Houthis, an armed group from Yemen backed by Iran,

have been attacking ships here in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

But this isn't just about trade routes.

It's about how the war in Yemen became part of a struggle

for influence between rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia,

with consequences far beyond the Middle East.

So how did this turn into a war with global impact?

Over time, what has collectively been called

the axis of resistance has included Hamas in Gaza,

Hezbollah in Lebanon,

and other groups in Iraq and Syria.

Saudi Arabia and Western powers say Iran has smuggled weapons,

including drones and missiles, to the Houthis

during Yemen's civil war in violation of a UN arms embargo.

But Iran has consistently denied arming the Houthis.

TRANSLATION: The Houthis are responsible for their own actions.

They don't take directions from us.

The Saudis were afraid of having an Iranian proxy at their border,

so they started a blockade of Yemen in 2015,

and they carried out significant air strikes on Houthi targets.

Years of fighting led to one of the world's most disastrous

humanitarian situations.

Diseases and famine ripped through the country,

and millions of Yemenis relied on aid to survive.

In April 2022, the UN successfully brokered a ceasefire,

but Hamas's attack on Israel on the 7th of October 2023

set off a chain of events that reignited tensions in the region.

After the start of the war in Gaza,

the Houthis began firing drones and missiles towards Israel

and ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

They said it was in solidarity with the Palestinians.

By portraying themselves

as like partners in the struggle,

with the Palestinians, with Gaza,

they wanted to gain international recognition,

international sympathy, and also demonstrate

their significance, their ability to disrupt shipping,

and sort of the strength of the Houthis in that way.

Then in February 2026, the US and Israel

launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran.

They killed the country's Supreme Leader,

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran began blockading the Strait of Hormuz,

and a few months later,

Houthi officials went to his funeral.

They returned to Yemen on an Iranian plane.

When they attempted to land at Sana'a airport,

strikes were launched to stop them.

The Houthis blame the Saudis and launched retaliatory strikes.

Ever since, the situation has continued to get worse in Yemen.

Millions of Yemenis have been displaced,

sometimes multiple times.

It's difficult to overstate

the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis,

and I tend to think of it really in generational terms because

the war could stop tomorrow and the recovery

from this humanitarian crisis would take years.

The impact of the war is being felt beyond Yemen's borders.

Iran disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz

as a response to the US-Israeli war.

Months later,

the Houthis escalated their actions in the Bab al-Mandab Strait,

both using their ability to control waterways

to strengthen their position.

Both of these actors share leverage.

They also strengthen one another's leverage.

Some of that can be coordinated together,

but some of that is within their own individual interests

and their own individual conflict calculus.

And the Houthis have also been using drones and missiles

to hit targets in Saudi Arabia.

I think what the Houthis are hoping for here is to basically bomb

their way back to the negotiating table.

And the Houthis aspire to be recognised

as the leaders of north Yemen.

And so the willingness of the Saudis to talk directly

with the Houthis is an important part of this puzzle.

And that disruption has the potential

to affect food and energy security around the world,

because the Bab al-Mandab Strait

connects Europe and Asia through the Suez Canal.

I think if the Bab al-Mandab Strait is completely closed,

a lot of shipping companies will try to go around

the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.

So it means that goods will be more expensive.

It means that access to food will decrease.

So we're back to these two narrow stretches of water

and how hugely important they are for the rest of the world.

The conflict in Iran, specifically over the Strait of Hormuz,

seems to have demonstrated to the entire international community

that weaker military powers

can still hold their own in a broader global conflict,

as long as they have very specific geographies

or leverage over maritime choke points.

Here is some more World Service content

that made an impact this week.

Using open source reporting and satellite imagery analysis,

BBC News Korean investigated luxury vessels repeatedly spotted near

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's private villa.

This included an 80 metre luxury vessel featuring

a 50 metre swimming pool

and water slides.

BBC News Serbian and the Global Disinformation Unit's

exclusive investigation found dozens of misleading

political adverts using digitally altered presenters

to target supporters of the student protest movement.

These Facebook pages broke Meta's transparency rules

on political advertising

and raised questions about foreign financing,

illegal in Serbia, because the ads were paid for in Romanian currency.

You can find both stories on the BBC News website.

For our next story on Global Eye,

we're taking you to the largest island in Central America,

Coiba Island off Panama's Pacific coast.

It's renowned for its unspoiled natural beauty

and its rare wildlife.

It's been protected as a national park since 1991,

but there is a reason this island remained unspoiled for so long.

For BBC Mundo, Ronald Avila-Claudio went there to find out

how the island is overcoming its dark past.

Off Panama's Pacific coast lies one of the most isolated

and biologically rich places in the Americas.

The isolation that has helped protect Coiba was no accident.

For most of the 20th century,

the island was home to one of Panama's most feared prisons.

Mali Mali has spent a decade in prison on Coiba

after being convicted for murder.

He has always maintained his innocence,

saying he was forced to sign a confession.

The prison covered over one fifth of the national park.

It had a central compound of more than 20 camps

housing hundreds of inmates across the island.

Over the decades, Coiba gained a reputation

as one of Panama's toughest prisons.

Former prisoners have described the use of violence,

abuse and forced labour,

particularly during Panama's military dictatorships.

The penal colony officially closed in 2004.

Today, the former prisoner helps scientists study

the island he once tried to escape from.

Coiba has been chosen as a Unesco World Heritage Site

because many of its plants and animals

are found nowhere else on Earth.

While scientists have come and gone,

Mali Mali has been a constant presence.

As a former prisoner and now a park ranger,

he has an intimate knowledge of every corner of the island.

For many years, it looked like

Coiba's prison era had been left behind.

But in 2026, that changed.

Following a mass escape from a prison in the capital,

the government of President Jose Raul Mulino

once again sent inmates to the island.

It's not clear if this will be permanent,

but the decision has drawn criticism

because of the painful memories associated with the prison

and concerns about its potential environmental impact.

For Mali Mali,

Coiba's future is inseparable from its past.

Thank you for joining me in Yemen. We'll be back next week. Goodbye.