Nawal Al-Maghafi
Acting
Biography
Reported and Directed Starving Yemen, she was one of the first journalists to enter Sadah and gain an exclusive interview with one of the key leaders of the Houthi movement. She has reported across the border in Saudi Arabia on the conditions facing the Shi’a population there. She reported a BBC World film on Ali Abdullah Saleh and his family, interviewing the former President and his close associates. She has also documented the journey of Ethiopian migrants traveling to Saudi Arabia for work and the stories of those who were kidnapped and tortured in Yemen, including at the hands of members of the Yemeni military. Most recently she worked on two films with BBC Newsnight investigating the UK and US role in the war in Yemen and has contributed is a frequent writer on The Telegraph, Middle East Eye amongst other publications.
Known For
In 1971, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE ceased to be part of Britain’s empire in the Middle East and became fully independent states. BBC News Persia and BBC Arabic collaborate in this gripping film, to uncover the secrets and shady deals that underpinned the decolonization process. From eye-witness accounts of a British-organised coup to Iran being left in control of disputed islands, it's a fascinating insight to a murky history.
Secrets & Deals
Award-winning investigations - revealing secrets, rooting out injustice, and exposing crime, corruption, and abuse. The biggest stories from BBC correspondents all over the world.
Global Eye
BBC Arabic's Nawal Al-Maghafi reveals how the UAE hired mercenaries to conduct targeted assassinations of its political enemies in Yemen, with American mercenaries starting the killings in 2015.
American Mercenaries: Killing in Yemen
In 2008, 23-year-old Norwegian student Martine Vik Magnussen was killed after a night out in Mayfair. Hours after her death, the only suspect in the case, Farouk Abdulhak, the son of one of Yemen’s richest and most powerful men, fled the UK to Yemen.
Murder in Mayfair
In this undercover investigation, Nawal al-Maghafi exposes a secret world of sexual exploitation in Iraq. Some Shia clerics are using a controversial practice called ‘pleasure marriage’ to groom vulnerable girls and young women and pimp them out.
Undercover with the Clerics: Iraq's Secret Sex Trade
Following six years of war between the Houthis, a rebel group backed by Iran, and a Saudi-led coalition, an estimated 2 million children in Yemen are suffering from starvation, and 3.5 million people have been internally displaced. In “Yemen’s COVID Cover-Up,” the Yemen-born al-Maghafi returns to her home country to investigate how COVID-19 has impacted these compounding crises. She finds evidence of a far higher death toll than Houthi authorities in the country’s north are admitting, and reveals that the Houthi suspension of doctors' salaries, international aid cuts and the Saudi blockade have had a dire impact on Yemeni doctors’ ability to treat COVID patients. “Lack of oxygen caused most of the deaths,” one doctor tells her. As President Biden commits to ending U.S. support for Saudi offensives in Yemen, this documentary is a powerful look at the situation on the ground.