Documentary: Frontline – Benghazi in Crisis And Yemen Under Siege

Feras Kilani, Safa al Ahmad, (Aired May 3, 2016). PBS: Frontline.

Benghazi in Crisis: journalist Feras Kilani joins Libyan fighters as they battle for a central point in the city, meets civilians displaced by the fighting, and sits down with General Khalifa Haftar – who is trying to bring all militias fighting ISIS in Benghazi under his command. Yemen Under Siege: from journalist Safa al Ahmad. She has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, from the rise of Al Qaeda, to the outbreak of civil war between government forces and Houthi rebels, to the Saudi-led military coalition that has intervened, to the current international efforts at a ceasefire and peace deal.

Part one - Benghazi in Crisis: journalist Feras Kilani joins Libyan fighters as they battle for a central point in the city, meets civilians displaced by the fighting, and sits down with General Khalifa Haftar – who is trying to bring all militias fighting ISIS in Benghazi under his command. Part two - Yemen Under Siege: from journalist Safa al Ahmad. She has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, from the rise of Al Qaeda, to the outbreak of civil war between government forces and Houthi rebels, to the Saudi-led military coalition that has intervened, to the current international efforts at a ceasefire and peace deal.

In an on-the-ground report from the war-torn Libyan city of Benghazi – the birthplace of Libya’s uprising, and where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three colleagues died in an attack by Islamic extremists in 2012.

In Yemen there used to be 20 hospitals in Taiz – now only a handful are partially functioning, and even necessities like oxygen, which the doctors need to put patients under general anesthesia, are in short supply.

Benghazi in Crisis: journalist Feras Kilani joins Libyan fighters as they battle for a central point in the city, meets civilians displaced by the fighting, and sits down with General Khalifa Haftar – who is trying to bring all militias fighting ISIS in Benghazi under his command.

It’s a rare and grim look inside a city in turmoil: “I think Libya might be within months or one or two years one of the nightmares for the West,” Kilani says. Director and reporter is Feras Kilani, and the producer is Ben Allen.

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Yemen Under Siege: from journalist Safa al Ahmad. She has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, from the rise of Al Qaeda, to the outbreak of civil war between government forces and Houthi rebels, to the Saudi-led military coalition that has intervened, to the current international efforts at a ceasefire and peace deal.

But she made her way in – and her camera captures the conflict’s stunning human toll as it’s rarely seen. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, and for those that remain, life is nearly unbearable.

Mortar attacks kill children who are lining up for water. Schools have been closed for months. Producer and director is Safa Al Ahmad, the field producers are Ghaith Abdul Ahad and Abdel Aziz Sabri, and the senior producer is Frank Koughan.