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From Our Own Correspondent
Afghanistan: Shaiqa’s story
00:28:29
A father makes an unenviable decision in order to fund his daughter's medical treatment
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Narrator/Host
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outside the Ukrobecha Los ahoros de Memorial
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Mohanad Hashim
Day in Los y compra los vasicos
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BBC Correspondent/Reporter
Hello. Today we're in Khartoum, Sudan, which is inching back to life after government troops forced out rebel forces last year. In Armenia's capital, locals snap selfies with a visiting Emmanuel Macron before his full throated rendition of a French standard. We're in Berlin, where we hear how Germans are debating how to remember the country's colonial past. And in Ireland, our correspondent attends a traditional wake amid the changing seasons in West Cork. But first to Afghanistan, which is suffering a severe hunger crisis triggered by drought and exacerbated by massive international aid cuts. 3/4 of Afghans are now struggling to find food, jobs and access to health care. The Taliban's own policies, particularly its severe restrictions on the lives of women, has been one of the reasons cited by aid agencies for withdrawing support from the country. Taliban leaders have dismissed this as the politicization of humanitarian assistance. The BBC's Yogitele Maya met one family in Ghore province, one of the worst affected areas.
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Yogitele Maya
5 year old Shaikha has a striking face with brown hair and big black eyes. She stares at us suspiciously, clinging on to her father, 34 year old Saeed Ahmad, her small arms wrapped around his neck. She thinks all strangers might be doctors. That's why she's scared, he tells us as he holds her close, comforts her and kisses the top of her head. A month ago, Shaikha spent two weeks in hospital after she had surgery for appendicitis. Saeed and Shaikha live in Ghor province in the Hindu Kush mountains in central Afghanistan. But amid a severe hunger and jobs crisis, Saeed barely makes enough money working as a labourer to provide food for his family. Funding medical treatment is simply out of reach. Every morning at dawn, he walks for more than an hour to the town square in Chakcharan, the capital of Gaur province, along with hundreds of other men. But in the past six weeks, he's only managed to get 45 days of work the family has already sold every household item. They could get money for a carpet, some blankets and a pressure cooker so they could buy food. Their mud and clay home is owned by Saeed's brother in law, who's allowed the family to live in it for free. For Shaikha's medical treatment, Saeed made an unbearable choice. I sold her to a relative so I could pay for her operation, he says, his eyes welling up with tears. Five year old Shaikha was sold into marriage for 200,000 Afghani, which is roughly 2,400 pounds. If I had money, I would have never taken the decision to sell my daughter, Saeed tells me. But then I thought, what if she dies without the surgery? This way at least she is alive. That is enough for me, he says solemnly. This decision to sell a daughter, and it is nearly always young daughters, is one I have heard from several families on my most recent trip to Afghanistan. Sons are widely seen as future breadwinners, and today, with the economy in free fall and the Taliban imposing restrictions on education and work for women and girls, it is becoming more pronounced. During the two decades the Taliban was out of power, the Afghan government introduced laws to end child marriage. This week, the Taliban government codified laws that imply legal approval for child marriage. They also allow for a girl's silence as she reaches puberty to be considered as consent to a marriage, Saeed tells me. In his case, he negotiated with the buyer, a better off distant cousin, to keep Shaikha at home with him and her mother for as long as possible. If I had taken the whole sum at once, he would have taken her away immediately, he explains. So I told him, just give me enough for her medical treatment now and over the next five years you can give me the rest, after which you can take her. Giving away your child at such a young age carries a lot of anxiety, Saeed tells me again. But it's the only way I could keep her alive. He and his wife, Rihanna, have five children, including Shaikha. Meals are usually just dry pieces of bread with green tea shared between the family. In the past month, my children have had rice only two times. Even for that, I borrowed money from a neighbor, so said there are nights when we go to sleep hungry. Until two years ago, this family, along with many of their neighbors, used to get aid from the World Food Programme. Flour, cooking oil, lentils and nutritional supplements for children. But staggering international aid cuts brought that help to an abrupt halt. Many donors are walking away because of the Taliban supreme leader's policies, particularly his diktats against women. And while the Taliban government claims it has kick started several infrastructure and mining projects to create jobs, it is clear that millions of people will not survive without assistance. Two of Said's other children, a seven year old daughter called Zahra and a nine year old son called Azatullah, go to school. I cannot pay their fees so they are not officially registered, but they attend classes. I want them to be educated and have a better life. When he thinks about Shaika, Saeed says he feels racked with guilt. It was evident the decision was tearing him apart. My wife and I don't talk about the situation in front of her, but I think Shaikha has started to understand, he says. I do not have the strength to think of the moment when she will have to leave. It's extremely upsetting. As they sit hugging each other, the close bond that Saeed and Shaikha share is evident, as is the grief of a father who believes he's failed his daughter, Yogit Alaymaya.
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BBC Correspondent/Reporter
Next to Sudan, which has entered its fourth year of a brutal civil war in which more than 150,000 people have been killed and 12 million more have been displaced, the United nations has called it the world's largest humanitarian crisis. Fighting first broke out in April 2023 between the paramilitary Rapid Support for RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces over the country's future. Mohanad Hashim grew up in Khartoum and recently returned for the first time since the rebels were pushed out.
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Mohanad Hashim
I set off on the long road journey from the Red Sea coast into the interior towards the Nile in the capital Khartoum, over 800 miles away. The hazardous challenge of driving down the two lane, potholed, uneven motorway with trucks and vans speeding past in the low visibility of a haboob sandstorm gave a sense of the perils all around. We hit the outskirts of Adbar on the Nile just as dusk was falling and had a quick roadside meal of ful tamiya and egg. Even this busy city in the heart of gold mining country appeared emptier than when I last saw it just over a year ago. Roadside yards fenced with corrugated iron and zinc roofs function as hotels here. Some have up to 300 beds in one place, rented to men dreaming big, the men hoping to hit gold, the artisanal prospectors and miners attracted by the riches of the deserts of Adbara. But we did not spend the night, instead continuing the drive to Khartoum. On our way in from the northern suburbs of Bahri, I noticed the piles of destroyed trucks and vehicles I had previously seen by the sides of the road have now been cleared. Electricity was restored to the street lights, revealing the damaged buildings shredded with bullet holes and shrapnel. We crossed the old Blue Nile Bridge. I was excited. I had finally arrived at my city, though my beloved Khartoum was covered in a blanket of darkness, in contrast to the dancing lights across the river. We turned off towards the Nile Avenue, where the murals which once celebrated the 2019 democratic revolution have been replaced by billboards showing senior army generals. I could not help but ask myself, how did the most peaceful uprising against a dictator lead to one of the most brutal wars of the 21st century? That night, as we drove along the Nile Avenue from Khartoum back across the river to Omdurman, the smell of the burned dung on the riverbanks brought back memories of my childhood. While this place has endured a war that changed Sudan and brought disruption and destruction to the lives of family, friends and millions of others, that smell was the reassuring whiff of the constants the Nile, the land and the people. I spent my first night back in Omdurman, in my grandfather's house in our neighborhood, Al Hashmab. There are two displaced families now living in it. They gave me a room for the night. This was the first time since 2020 that I spent the night in that house, and the only time since the war started in April 2023 that I felt at home. Many vacant houses in the neighborhood and the city are now squatted by internally displaced people who had to move from other neighborhoods because their own homes were destroyed. Khartoum is slowly coming back to life. The last time I visited, it was still a war zone. Daily shelling was a feature of life. The constant thuds of outgoing or incoming artillery and mortars have largely abated. Still, a nighttime blast sent jitters through the residents. It will be a huge task to clear the large city of unexploded ordnance. But now more markets are open, transport is up and running, and the government is mostly back with the vast destruction. Repair works are underway, but there is a shortage of supplies and materials. Bureaucracy and red tape are back too. I had to approach three separate offices to obtain permission to visit a school to speak to students. We never got the permit. Those returning to the city have to face many lack of power and fresh water supplies, mosquitoes carrying malaria and dengue fever, a high cost of living, the shortages of the hospitals and doctors. But Khartoum has also lost its acacia forest, once full of migratory birds, and a beloved picnic spot for families. There are still dead bodies around, too. I came across the remains of a dead RSF fighter while visiting the formerly upmarket area. K2 checkpoints still dot the roads, but they're more relaxed than they were. Some signs of authority have returned. Policemen are visible in markets, neighborhoods and on the roads. In fact, armies of traffic cops are once again irking many residents as they resume their roadside busts, usually imposing fines on angry drivers. The groups of young army volunteers walking with guns have disappeared, only to be replaced by men from the Darfuri armed groups allied to the army. They could be seen driving erratically and recklessly, celebrating victories and weddings, or just showing off in speeding convoys, making their presence felt. People in Khartoum say they are today's allies, but they are yesterday's enemies. Some even ask if they may yet turn into enemies again.
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BBC Correspondent/Reporter
Mohanad hashim next to Armenia's capital, Yerevan, which recently played host to two EU summits, 30 European leaders, along with Canada's prime minister, descended on the city, along with the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council. Armenia spent most of the 20th century under the control of Moscow, and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it largely stayed on good terms with Russia. But that relationship has wavered in recent years and the country has turned increasingly westward and to the prospect of EU membership. Armenians go to the polls next month in critical elections, which will serve as a major test of the country's political trajectory. Reyhan Dimitri has been in Yerevan.
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Reyhan Dimitri
Early May is a beautiful time to drive from Georgia to Armenia. The mountains, the rivers, the snow capped peaks above fresh green valleys which suddenly give way to fields of red poppies along the five and a half hour journey. In every town we passed I noticed the same billboard. A man in his late 50s, silver haired, composed. This is Samvel Karapetian, a billionaire entrepreneur who made his fortune in Russia before he turned to politics. He is currently under house arrest, awaiting trial on charges of making calls to usurp power. Though he is free to communicate with the media and gives press conferences from his home, Karabityan is one of the main challenges to Armenia's pro EU prime minister Nicole Pashinyan in June's parliamentary elections. Despite being in Vladimir Putin's Customs Union and hosting a Russian military base, Armenia has been seeking closer ties with the European Union in recent times. Blue banners with the words European Political Summit lined the roads into the capital, Yerevan. The streets around the hotels were thick with police. A long red carpet had been rolled out at a vast Soviet era concert hall in the outskirts of the city. One by one, European leaders walked its length to shake hands with Mr. Pashinyan. The star of it all was Emmanuel Macron. He went jogging in the mornings with his security detail, stopped for selfies with strangers, and during the state dinner joined Pashinyan, who was playing drums while to sing the ballad La Bohme, a French classic made famous by the late Charles Aznavour, who was of Armenian descent. Eight years ago, Macron told the summit, none of us would have thought of coming to Armenia. He said it was Pashinyan's peace agenda and reforms that paved the way for European leaders to choose Yerevan as the host for the European political summit and also the first ever EU Armenia summit. This peace agenda is central to Pashinyan's re election campaign. He proudly stated that in the past two years there have been no skirmishes on the Armenian Azerbaijani border and not a single person injured. That is after almost 40 years of conflict over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh, which many Armenians call Atsakh. What a contrast to the events I covered only six years ago when in September 2020, Azerbaijan, armed with modern drones, crushed Armenian forces and retook large swathes of territory around Nagorno Karabakh. Three years later, it completed the takeover. The Russian peacekeepers deployed there stood by and watched. The Russian led security alliance to which Armenia belongs failed to intervene, and disillusionment with Moscow is partly the reason why the Armenian leadership has started looking westwards. During the conflict in 2023, around 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled their homes. In a matter of days. Every taxi driver who took me across Yerevan turned out to be from Karabakh. One described Azerbaijan's nine month blockade of the only road connecting the enclave to Armenia. Our children were going hungry while they sat here feasting, he said, his voice breaking in every conversation, I felt the same thing. Grief over lost homes, over graves now inaccessible, over something gone that will not come back. But in today's reality, these sorrows are weaponized. Artur Papian, a cyber threat researcher tracking Russian information operations in Armenia, told me that targeting is surgical, as seeds of doubt are sown on social media. For all the Armenians, the message is economic fear. Russia will cut off the gas. The poverty of the 1990s will return. Russia will punish the country for hosting EU summits. For young Armenians, a different narrative for them. Prime Minister Pashinyan surrendered Karabakh. He is handing over sovereignty. He is letting the enemy in. Young Armenians are not pro Russian, but they want to be a winning nation, says Papian Ahead of the June vote, a new EU mission has been deployed to Armenia to counter cyber threat and disinformation campaigns. On the sidelines of the EU Armenia summit, I met a young opposition journalist called Haik. Look at our geography. What guarantees can the EU give us? He asked. Pashinyan knows all of this. If the EU accepts Armenia as a full member, wonderful. If not, we will still have a country that fully meets EU standards, he said at the joint press conference. We always thought our position was terrible. Now we understand it is extraordinary. The shortest route from east to west passes through Armenia. That is the bet a country reorienting itself around a future it cannot yet see in a neighborhood that punishes uncertainty harshly.
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BBC Correspondent/Reporter
Reyhan Dimitri
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BBC Correspondent/Reporter
Germany's culture of remembrance, er Rinnerungskultur, has long been seen as a model for how others can reckon with the darkest episodes of their past. Today there are hundreds of memorial sites dotted around Berlin, many of them dedicated to the victims of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. But this remembrance culture has come under some scrutiny over the past year after the Culture Minister announced plans to broaden exactly what it is the country remembers. As Chelsea Coates discovered, some Berliners believe there are other chapters of history and that Germany is yet to fully confront.
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As the sun rose on a crisp morning in Berlin, my friend Hengemey and I were strolling through the tree lined grounds of Charlottenburg Palace. It was a public holiday to mark German unity. So with more than a hint of irony, Hengemi assured me there would be a parade and perhaps even some bunting to mark the occasion. But there were, in fact, no flags. Today's Germans are generally not famed for their overt displays of patriotism. Hengame told me about her university course on German history, sharing fun facts about the palace and the last German emperors as we walked through the grounds. Does the course touch on the former colonies too? I asked, but she tilted her head at me in confusion. Germany didn't have any, she replied. It's a phrase that Tahir Della from the Initiative of Black People in Germany, is used to hearing in a residential block in Berlin's Kreuzberg district. I recount my conversation with my friend, and Tahir shakes his head. People say Germany was only a colonial power for a short time, so colonialism doesn't need to be a central topic in our history books, he says, chuckling in disbelief. Last year, Germany's former culture minister announced proposals to expand the national remembrance culture to include three the history of immigration to Germany, the fluctuating history of democracy, and German colonialism. The plan had its critics, notably among representatives of Holocaust memorial sites who expressed concern it would lead to a fundamental weakening of the culture of remembrance. For them, the new plans failed to make clear the central importance of the Holocaust to Germany and risked trivializing Nazi war crimes. The new culture minister swiftly abandoned those plans, saying the Holocaust must be seen in its singularity and adding, we don't want to create relativities. He's expected to deliver plans on how he will address Germany's colonial history this autumn. I've come to meet Tahir to find out more about how this period of Germany's history is currently remembered and why some still want this to change. There are floor to ceiling bookcases in the NGOs offices full of postcolonial theory. And on the walls there are pictures of initiative members proudly hanging up new street names after they had campaigned to remove old ones, harkening back to the country's colonial past, such as the Mangabelplatz, which was renamed from Nachtigallplatz a German colonialist in tribute to the Cameroonian resistance leader Rudolf Dwala Mangabel. It's not about creating a sense of competition, says Tahir. It's about making the way we teach our country's history more inclusive. Tahir tells me that Germany has only just started to reckon with this chapter of its past. Five years ago, Berlin formally recognised that German colonisers had committed genocide in Namibia, killing tens of thousands of people. It offered just over a billion euros in development aid to be paid out over 30 years, though there was no overt mention of this being reparations. Later, over coffee, I meet 26 year old primary school teacher Helena Hacker, who is also calling for greater awareness of Germany's imperial history. If you asked most Germans when concentration camps were first used, they would say in the Holocaust. But Germany also used them in its former colonies, she says. Helena says her pupils come from all corners of the world, and that's why she believes Ernehung's Kultur the culture of remembrance needs to change. Colonialism laid the groundwork for racism, she argues, which affects many of the children in her class today. We need to change the language around this period, she says, to give young people more context on the past and how it informs the present. But creating greater awareness of other periods of German history doesn't and shouldn't mean measuring or comparing suffering, Helena argues. Instead, they can coexist. After leaving the cafe, I decide to take refuge from the rain on the U Bahn and make my way to Checkpoint Charlie. When I first visited Berlin as a student, I was struck by how tangible history felt there. The abrupt divide in architectural styles and the scattered remnants of the wall felt like a leap back in time. Now I see details I must have missed the first time round. Stores sell Che Guevara stickers and fur hats adorned with a red hammer and sickle. The once infamous sign reading, you are now entering the American sector is punctuated by the glowing red KFC logo hanging directly above it. As the country debates how to commemorate its history, its capital's landmarks serve as a powerful reminder that the past is always just around the corner, sitting not always comfortably right next to the present.
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BBC Correspondent/Reporter
Chelsea, Coates, and finally the UK and the Irish Republic are neighbours, and many aspects of daily life are similar. But Irish traditions surrounding the end of life can be quite different, especially in the countryside. Vincent Dowd travelled recently to the country's far southwest for a funeral, where he was introduced to the tradition of the Irish wake.
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Narrator/Host
The farmhouse bed and breakfast, which Agnes devoted her life to in a remote corner of County Cork, was already well established when, 30 years ago, the taxi from Bantry rattled me up the narrow track to its door. It was to be the first of many visits to the tiny village of Ahakista on the Sheepshead peninsula. In late spring and summer, West Cork is a delight in the warmth of the Atlantic Gulf Stream. Foliage of almost every colour grows wild fuchsia and chamomile, cat's ear and dog violet. But this is a cold, grey day and an Atlantic storm is coming in. I turn off the coast road and the car climbs across the peninsula. For once, I'm here, out of season because someone who for years played host to me and to friends and family has died, aged 88. It's two days since I read online that Agnes Hegarty had passed away, but I'm still wary about how I might react to my first Irish wake or to a particular aspect of it. Ireland is not the only place where wakes survive, but it may be where the tradition is strongest. There are no reliable figures as to what percentage of funerals in the countryside still include a home wake, although in cities they're certainly much rarer than they were. Once or twice I've been invited to a wake for someone I didn't know the deceased person would be laid out at home in an open coffin, dressed in their smartest clothes. But since childhood I found something chilling about the idea of the coffin being open, and I'd always said no. But this was for someone I'd liked, and it was time for me to witness an important bit of Irish life. When I arrive at the whitewashed farmhouse, there's a line of cars up the track and men in dark suits and ties telling us where to park. Visitors have come at the appointed time to pay their last respects, and I see at once this isn't a moment weighed down with grim solemnity. It's a good natured, almost jolly get together amid comforting reminders of the small things which made Agnes's life a full life. Here is where countless loaves of soda bread were turned out from the oven. Here is the room where guests ate breakfast. And here, year after year, a succession of dogs dozed in the summer sun. Hundreds of people file through the house, many more than I'd expected, to offer their condolences to the family. There is there's so much chat and warm sociability that the open coffin doesn't dominate, as I feared it might. Women especially, stop for a moment to touch Agnes arm or forehead and to whisper final, private words. Wandering into the kitchen. There's an endless supply of tea and sandwiches, and perhaps a drop of something stronger if desired. I ask the man in front of me what's to come next. You're asking the wrong guy, he replies. At an Irish wake, it's the women who run everything, in fact. Next was that the church sacristan, Geretti Daly began the religious part of the event, a short Bible reading, a Decade of the Rosary and a rendition of Amazing Grace later, she's keen to correct misapprehensions about Irish wakes, which she says outsiders like me still have. They're thinking about the old traditions, Goretti says in the old days, people might stop the clock when the person dies or turn the mirror to the wall and make sure the cur are drawn because the spirit of a dead can't be allowed to escape. But Irish ways have moved on, although Goretti adds, not always for the better. In Irish cities and large towns, death, she thinks, is now too commercial. It's big business. A wake at home is a different thing entirely. It's a celebration of a life and of where it was lived. In Ireland, country people have a strong connection to their bit of the land. That thought came back to me the following day as we all huddled in the burial ground down by the water's edge. The storm had arrived in a big way, but perhaps if you live on the last bit of Europe before America, you're used to the Atlantic hitting you hard and sideways. Bone chilling rain pelted out of a dark sky. Umbrellas twisted in the squall and flapped inside out. Nature was drenching us. But at a burial, nature can also console. Partly it was the power of a vast ocean only moments away, but also the prospect of small things about to return for the spring, which make a life a full life. Fuchsia and chamomile, cat's ear and dog.
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BBC Correspondent/Reporter
Violet Vincent Dowd. And that's all for today, but you can hear more stories from around the world on from our own correspondent on BBC Sounds. We'll be back again next Saturday morning to join us.
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Narrator/Host
8 August 1963. A gang of thieves hold up a British Royal Mail train on its way from Glasgow to London. More than 2 million pounds was stolen and Ronnie Biggs was the most famous face of the Great Train Robbery.
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Yogitele Maya
Daniel Mays reveals the true story of Ronnie Biggs.
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Narrator/Host
A train robbery, a prison escape and 36 years on the run.
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Yogitele Maya
Gangster presents the story of Ronnie Biggs.
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Narrator/Host
Listen first on BBC sounds.
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