Soon after that meeting, a friend in Sana offered a different theory: Arhab was not uniformly loyal to the Houthis. They couldn’t be sure what people there would say, and perhaps assumed that if I actually made it to northern Yemen, they could simply redirect me to a story in more reliably pro-Houthi area. My editors in New York and I began trying and mostly failing to talk by phone and come up with a new reporting plan. We didn’t have much time. My money, my visas and my access to the North would last about a week. After two days, I had made no progress, and I decided to make one last attempt to sway the Houthis on letting me go to Arhab.

[Get a weekly roundup of Times coverage of war delivered to your inbox. Sign up here.]

I went to visit the representative at the ministry, a mostly empty building with broken windows and holes in exterior walls from constant fighting. I asked what he thought about me asking researchers at a local human rights organization to call some of their contacts in Arhab. It was a way of cracking the door open without challenging the Houthis. An hour and half later, my translator and I were in an office across the city at the organization’s headquarters, a modest building with a chicken coop and a faint stink out front. We told them about the sudden reluctance in Arhab. They barely acknowledged the problem. They were eager to help. That evening, I had only just arrived at my hotel when a phone I assumed didn’t work rang in my room. It was one of the researchers. He was actually in the lobby — he had followed me back. He had already spoken to two people in Arhab who wanted to cooperate. Before we finished talking, a fixer called to say that the ministry already knew. It had heard that the researchers were in touch with people in Arhab and that the people in Arhab were willing to talk, and now the Houthis promised not to get in my way. The ministry would call ahead to the checkpoints and try to ensure my safe passage.

When I got to Arhab the next day, I was led into a classroom. So many people filed in to share their stories that someone closed the door to keep people out. The room started to grow dark, because outside, people blocked from entering were beginning to press against the windows.

Jeffrey E. Stern is an investigative journalist and author of two books, “The Last Thousand” and “The 15:17 to Paris.”