How a TV show became Yemen's lifeline to find the missing and disappeared

DHAMAR, Yemen — With a frail body worn down by grief, 67-year-old Hamama lived with the pain of losing her eldest son. She had wept so bitterly that she lost vision in one eye.

In the 1980s, her 16-year-old son Ahmad al-Ahdal endured continuous beatings from his father, who mistreated him and his siblings. The abuse left Ahmad traumatised. "He told me he would leave and wouldn't return home until after his father's death," the mother, Hamama, recalled to The New Arab. "He said his younger brother would take care of me when he grew up."

Her husband searched for their son but never found him. He too lost his vision from grief before, and died at over 100 years old, having married 16 women throughout his life.

For 35 years, Hamama lived in Yemen's rural Dhamar governorate. She had lost all hope of seeing her son.

Decades of continuous conflict and war produced thousands of missing and absent persons whose families know nothing about them. According to Katharina Ritz, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) mission in Yemen, "There are currently thousands of people missing due to the conflict in Yemen. Each missing person leaves behind a family that will never stop searching for them and seeking information about their fate. They don't know where they are or whether they're alive or dead."

During Yemen's ten-year war, the ICRC registered at least 4,828 missing persons and facilitated more than 145 family reunifications, including minor children. In a country experiencing what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, families of the missing and absent find themselves with nowhere to turn to search for their loved ones.

Amid this tragedy, a television program "Mowtani" (My Homeland), hosted by broadcaster Mohammed al-Mahmadi on Yemen's Al-Noor channel, has come to the fore, helping thousands of families since its launch in 2009 as "Noah al-Tuyur," which later changed its name to its current title.

Filling the void

Mahfouz, Hamama's youngest son, had followed al-Mahmadi's programs for years. The show broadcasts appeals and pleas for missing people to return to their families, with many returning thanks to the program.

"I've been watching Mowtani for years. Many who were absent and missing returned after long years—sometimes half a century—through the program," said the 40-year-old Mahfouz al-Ahdal. "This encouraged me to search as well, to reassure my heart and my mother's heart whether my brother is still alive so he can return, or if he's dead so my mother's heart can rest."

Mahfouz obtained al-Mahmadi's number from his Facebook account and scheduled a filming. "We went to film the episode. I had no hope that Ahmad would return after these years, but my mother's regretful state pained me greatly," he said. "Despite the obstacles and absence of data and a photo showing my brother, so people could recognise him if he was alive, what happened was a miracle."

Hamama appeared on the program, broadcasting appeals to her son, who had been absent for 35 years, asking him to return and requesting viewers' help in seeing him. "She cried bitterly. All her wishes were to see her son before she died," Mahfouz added.

The same night the episode aired, someone from Ans district in Dhamar called Mahfouz. "He told me he was about to sleep but decided to turn on the TV and watch the episode," Mahfouz recounted. "He had heard the story from my absent brother. He called and said there was someone with them for 35 years whose story resembled my brother's. He sent me his photo, and when I saw it with my family, his features appeared to possibly be my brother."

The next morning, Mahfouz and his wife went to Ans, where local residents welcomed them. After hearing the story, they confirmed it was indeed his real brother. "My brother had told them what happened with our father and what he suffered, so their souls were reassured," Mahfouz explained. "They told me they changed his name from Ahmad to Samir after his arrival, which increased the search difficulty."

With a trembling voice mixed with joy, Mahfouz recalled, "I was still a child when he left us. He was wearing tattered clothes, his appearance showed fatigue and exhaustion, and it seemed he was suffering from some kind of psychological distress. I couldn't believe my brother Ahmad returned after all these years."

Critical gaps

Lawyer and human rights defender Huda al-Sarari views the missing and absent in Yemen as "not merely a passing event, but the result of accumulated complex factors, including armed conflict, economic and security conditions. Thousands of Yemenis emigrated or were internally displaced. Some lost contact with their families, and disappearance cases were registered not only because of war but also due to migration under difficult circumstances."

Al-Sarari noted to TNA that "war provided an ideal environment for suspicious absence and disappearance. Transport and communication lines were cut. Many families lost track of their loved ones amid the chaos."

The absence of strong, integrated institutions, which created fragmented authorities and multiple territorial controls, "made it difficult to document or track people," she added.

She pointed to "systematic violence and undeclared arrests" resulting in many missing persons from "undocumented forced disappearances by controlling parties, increasing those missing from statistics, especially in some Houthi-controlled areas where families refuse to report out of fear for victims, particularly in women's cases."

Regarding the absence of real statistics on missing and absent persons in Yemen, al-Sarari cited "the non-existence of an agreed-upon unified national database collecting reliable information about the missing, and the fragmentation of civil society working individually without coordination, leading to major statistical contradictions."

"International organisations' refusal to support local civil society coordination, limiting it to some individual institutions and human rights defenders, division of authorities, and difficulty accessing areas—state fragmentation and difficulty reaching conflict zones make systematic information gathering nearly impossible, in addition to family fears where some families don't report or refuse to publish data fearing retaliation," she added.

Partial solution

Mufeed al-Hadhouri, 18, disappeared from his family 15 years ago due to a family dispute. The young man, who had just gotten engaged, left his home in rural al-Siyani district in Ibb governorate, heading to the eastern governorate of Hadramout, where he had settled for years before returning to Sanaa.

During his absence, his family managed to contact him only once, via his father and older sister.

"My father managed to contact him once and asked him to return, saying his bride was waiting, but he refused. This prompted my father to search for him in Hadramout and stay for two months, but he didn't find him. This coincided with the February 2011 events, making the search more difficult," his brother Mohammed explained to TNA.

"We didn't know where to go to search. We didn't know there were organisations or any entities we could search through and knock on their doors," Mohammed said. A work colleague advised him about the Mowtani program and how to communicate and send Mufeed's data without going to film in Sanaa.

"I took the program presenter's number from the official Facebook page and sent the photo, name, age, and contact method, which was displayed in the 'Absent Persons' Appeals' segment," he said. "Four days after the episode aired, someone from al-Qadisiyah in Sanaa contacted me and told me my brother was alive and present in Sanaa. The next day, my brother called me, and I met him in Ibb governorate. It turned out he had changed his name to Fahd so we wouldn't recognise him. He lived a miserable life in Sanaa."

"We didn't expect him to be still alive. I thought it was impossible, especially with the war that caused the death of many young men who joined fighting fronts with the conflict parties," Mohammed added.

Abdulsalam Dadia, an activist interested in humanitarian affairs who dedicated his Facebook account with 197,000 followers to publishing Mowtani episodes, said, "I've been publishing the program's episodes regularly for three years. I have followers who love the program and are accustomed to entering my page to watch it. Publishing program segments has become part of my content."

He added that publishing on social media "has an impact beyond merely sharing stories, as it makes the issue of the missing and absent in Yemen move from a private family matter to a public opinion issue, helping families of the absent by expanding the circle of possibilities. Every share might reach someone who has a small thread leading to a long-awaited meeting."

Al-Sarari viewed the program as "an effective solution in Yemen because it simply reached people when the state and organisations were absent from them. Families of the missing don't seek complicated procedures or reports; they want someone to hear them and take their pain seriously. The program offered them this simply: a safe space to speak, speed in interaction, and a sense that their case is visible and not forgotten."

She clarified that "Mowtani program is a partial but important solution at the level of psychological and humanitarian support because it highlights families' stories, alleviates the feeling of isolation, and reaches large audiences that can help find information. But it's not a substitute for official and institutional mechanisms for documentation and search, nor can it replace organised, systematic work."

The program's real strength, according to al-Sarari, "lies in being humanitarian before being media. It doesn't treat families as numbers or files as organisations do, but as people with pain and pending questions. Public appearance gives them social recognition, and sometimes opens doors to information that wouldn't appear through official channels."

Mahfouz now lives with his mother and family in Sanaa. Yet he feels sad whenever he hears 51-year-old Ahmad repeat that "his last wish in this world after seeing his mother is to get married," but his difficult circumstances prevent him from doing so.

This article is published in collaboration with Egab.