FRONTLINE

>> When we were in Yemen in May of 2017, we were the only foreign journalists that were able to get permission to visit the country. We wanted to come in and see the consequences of the two-plus years of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition. You have the region's wealthiest country bombing the region's poorest. And people are not seeing what's going on. We're talking thousands of civilian dead. (makes sound of jet streaking) Boom. (makes streaking sound) >> You make your way around Yemen and you can see the war wherever you go. But it's not always immediately evident. We were in one supermarket in the capital, Sanaa, and it was a fairly well-stocked supermarket. It looked like a lot of supermarkets in the U.S. We then noticed that people were paying not with cash, but with coupons. >> We ran into people who were working and hadn't been paid in many, many months. The whole banking system had pretty much collapsed, so the cash just wasn't there. >> That's just a small example of how you see the war affecting people's daily lives everywhere you go. It's not just the jets you hear overhead or the buildings that are bombed or the airport that's demolished. It's the knock-on effects of the war on infrastructure. When we came into town, what struck me right away was the amount of garbage on the streets. The garbage workers hadn't been paid in eight months. The rains came, washing through the garbage. Bacteria carried into the water supply. People drinking bad water. And they were hit by a cholera epidemic. Cholera simply dehydrates you quickly, so that anything you ingest-- any water you drink or food you eat-- just completely passes through your system and you get no nutrients out of it. (speaking Arabic) >> The World Health Organization is saying that there are over 300,000 cases of cholera. 1,600 people have died, many of them children, and the numbers keep going up. The hospital we visited, they were already beyond capacity. The nurses and doctors were suffering from a lack of medicines and equipment. And they were there working in spite of the fact that they hadn't been paid. >> People often ask why the Saudis are bombing Yemen. It's a question for the Saudis. They'll tell you they're fighting against the rebel group that's trying to take over the country, who are backed by their archrival, Iran. Yet in the time I was there, it was hard to see, really, what the Iranians were doing. But the impact of the Saudi-led coalition bombing was very clear. Parts of the country have been isolated because of bomb strikes on bridges. People on the ground in Yemen are suffering. They're caught in the crossfire of this war. In Hajjah, we went to a hospital, and I met a nurse there who showed me pictures she'd taken a day or two before of a young boy who came in severely malnourished, and died. >> She then was called away to go take care of a new severe malnutrition patient. A mother came in with her child. It was a little girl named Aaleen, a seven-month-old baby. (crying) >> There were always malnutrition cases in Yemen, but the nurse told us that the number of cases had more than doubled since the war. And maybe an hour later, another mother came in with her daughter. Ruqayyah, her name was, was a five-year-old girl. Ruqayyah had come from an IDP, an internally displaced persons' camp that was quite a ways away, up near the Saudi border. Traveled several hours because the hospital up near her had been bombed. (crying) >> And who do you blame for the war? >> We had to leave the hospital before we knew what the fate of the girls was going to be. I don't know what happened to them. All I do know is that health workers in Yemen say that every ten minutes, a child dies of preventable causes. Americans may not be aware of American involvement in the war in Yemen, but Yemenis, in Sanaa and in northern Yemen, certainly know where the weapons are coming from. Just a few days after we arrived, there was a huge rally in the middle of Sanaa called the "Say No to American Terrorism" rally. Thousands gathered to protest the arrival of President Trump in Riyadh, where he announced his intention to approve a $110 billion arms package to the Saudis. (chanting in Arabic) >> It was pretty evident that we were an American TV crew, but absolutely no hostility was directed at us. There was only a sense that our government was to blame and ordinary Yemenis want the world to be aware of what's going on.