The morning was unassuming. Timeless stone houses chilled by crisp air on a remote and rocky mountain top in Yemen’s western highlands.

Sheikh Yahya al-Muesin appeared at the front door of Dr Peter Underwood’s house, with five or six bodyguards beside him. An air of hurried importance exuded from the Sheikh as he suggested they stroll through the now-awakening village.

Despite evidence pointing to a tricky situation, Yemeni culture meant Peter could not question the request. They had a respectful relationship, one being the chief and the other the only qualified doctor in the village, but something was happening.

They walked together through the town’s winding and hilly paths, the morning air refreshingly pleasant.

“The rains are just about to come,” stated the Sheikh. Peter concurred.  

“It’s quite dangerous when the rain comes,” said the Sheikh. “Look at the rocks that are holding down the roofs, one could be dislodged in the rain and fall on your head. That would be terrible, wouldn’t it?”

There was a lull, in which the leader was trying to convey something unspoken. “In fact, I think it would be really good for you, your wife Zdenka and your child; to have a little holiday.” 

The next morning at dawn, Peter left for Kenya on a three week vacation. 

The reason for the suggestion and their sudden departure was later revealed.

One of the village’s “quacks,” an unqualified individual who claimed to be a doctor, was intent on getting rid of either Peter or the other or the doctor in town, a Yemini called Ali. Working as a doctor in the Reyma community had earned Peter a great amount of respect, which was perceived as a threat.

This story drastically contrasted the vision of the man sitting in front of me.

We sat together in his darkened living room. Having recently returned from selling his beloved farm meant the floor was scattered with stacks of worn books and every surface was decorated with an evidently loved item.

The more we spoke, the more I saw the weather of his travels on his face. His eyes were surrounded by wrinkle s showing his age and well-spent time; his shoulders well-postured, one leg casually over another. His language was eloquent and educated, reflecting his cosmopolitan lifestyle.

Growing up in Western Australia, Peter was drawn to a deeper element of doctoring.

As a medical student at 20 years old, Peter flew to Papua New Guinea for a few months and was intending to work as an orderly at Madang Provincial Hospital. He was enchanted by the new environment, and so the hospital’s superintendent suggested he travel instead and move through the coastal areas and mountains of Papua New Guinea. This introduction to travel and culture was seminal to his beliefs.

“I was always interested in doing something more than just being a doctor of people with people’s complaints and illnesses. and more interested in the culture and the society and how they interacted with people. How people’s personalities relate with their illnesses.”

After graduating from medical school, Peter moved to Port Hedland to work for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Saving some of his income while working up North, he and a few friends were able to purchase an old Land Rover, shipping it between Singapore and Malaysia and then finally to India, driving it from Madras, India (now formally named Chennai) to London, in the United Kingdom.

“That experience was an even more powerful for me, seeing poverty, seeing the cultures of India and the cultures of Pakistan.” 

Upon returning, Peter joined a progressive branch of the British Volunteer Program, specifically the Catholic Institute of National Relations. This was an overseas volunteering program that involved sending skilled individuals to developing nations, which included North Yemen, following the civil war of 1962 to 1970.

The population of the province of Reyma, North Yemen, was roughly 150,000. So, before leaving for Yemen, Peter spent eighteen months as a general practitioner in Dalwallinu, a farming town in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region.

“I was a well-trained doctor then, as far as internal medicine. I had done a lot of pediatrics, I had done a lot of obstetrics and I had post-graduate qualifications in those. That was a terrific experience.”

With few expenses living in their small house in Dalwallinu, Peter and his then-wife Zdenka continued saving for the trip to Yemen while Peter built his understanding of general practice. However, a new development in their lives created a difficult dilemma for their future.

Zdenka fell pregnant.  

“This didn’t change our desire to go, however it made it very difficult for the Catholic Institute of National Relations to send us there.” After much back and forth, Peter, Zdenka and their baby eventually managed to go with the permission of the Institute.

They stayed until Zdenka was pregnant again, and the family faced with the hard decision to fly back home.

In the early 1980s, he got involved with the Medical Association for Prevention of War working as the convener of the Western Australia branch. The group is a collection of doctors and healthcare workers who believe that health and war are interlinked; that wellbeing is affected by conflict and violence, before, during and after.

Jo Vallentine, an Australian peace activist and former senator for the Nuclear Disarmament Party, said Peter’s medical work and activism go hand-in-hand.

MAPW president Sue Wareham said Peter is “driven by deep concern for humanity, which his earlier life plays out working in Yemen.”

In 2025, MAPW Perth held a Hiroshima Nagasaki commemoration for the event’s 80^th anniversary, which aimed to focus on the devastation of the bombing and the consequences that followed.

“It was Peter’s idea, his initiative, he drove it along,” Dr Wareham said.

This event was also significant for the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons, an organisation initiated by MAPW aiming to reach a treaty through the United Nations, banning nuclear weapons. The treaty was opened for signatures in 2017, and so far, 101 states have signed the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and 75 states have ratified it.

This resulted in the ICAN organisation being awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace prize for their contributions to the prevention of nuclear weapons. 

Deflecting from his own achievements, Peter sums it up saying: “I work closely with a group of doctors and health workers who think war and health are very closely connected, and that health is deeply affected by war and violence.

“With war being an unrecognised cause of huge health problems, I always felt closely aligned with the group of anti-war people. I’ve always had a strong feeling for working for peace.”