logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2019
29 m

Mosul in colour

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

What life after IS looks like for the residents of Iraq's second city - bright hijabs, bold makeup and striking works of art. "Colour has become their way of saying ‘we’ve taken our lives and our city back’" says Shaimaa Khalil.

Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world:

Orla Guerin finds out what happened to the two sick children she met in Yemen last year. Six months on, were they able to leave the war-torn country to get the medical care they so desperately needed?

Amelia Martyn-Hemphill meets the mums in Madagascar trying to save others from a taboo condition and encourage them to seek treatment for obstetric fistula rather than suffer in silence.

John Murphy is in Germany where he meets a woman with clawed feet, horns and yellow eyes - he's at computer gaming exhibition in Leipzig.

And Stephanie Hegarty hears how the harsh climate of the Mongolian steppe is forcing more and more people to move to the overcrowded capital Ulaanbaatar – already one of the world’s most populated cities.

Up next
Yesterday
Bangladesh's deadly measles outbreak
Kate Adie introduces stories on Bangladesh's deadly measles outbreak, France's military flex on Bastille Day, Albania's 'flamingo revolution', Ecuador's bird-watching boom, and remembering BBC Rome correspondent David Willey. Bangladesh is experiencing a severe measles outbreak, ... Show More
28m 42s
Jul 11
Iran: the funeral of Ayatollah Khamanei
Kate Adie presents stories on the burial of Ayatollah Khamanei in Iran, a diplomatic correspondent's return to Moscow, a pioneering therapy centre in Ukraine's West, Italian lessons in Argentina and the restoration of the Casbah in Algiers.The streets of major cities across Iran ... Show More
29m 19s
Jul 4
Venezuela Earthquakes: 'I don't know how to rebuild my life'
Kate Adie introduces stories on Venezuela's earthquake recovery efforts, the rapid start of Hungary's new PM, a post-Soviet reunion at a border-town bazaar, and does the American Dream still hold up as America celebrates 250 years of independence. 
28m 58s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2021
Iraq 2021
BBC Arabic journalist Murad Shishani spent several weeks this year reporting from Iraq. He visited Mosul, liberated four years ago from so-called Islamic State, to gauge the mood ahead of October's election. More recently, he covered the stories of migrants, from those repatriate ... Show More
41m 21s
May 2023
Iraq: Generation Invasion
Twenty years after the US-led invasion, four young Iraqis recall life under foreign occupation and share their hopes and fears for the future. Shedding a light on post-Saddam Iraq are: 26-year-old Dima who rebelled against religious extremists in her native Basra and has rediscov ... Show More
50m 47s
May 2020
Arts and Culture in Baghdad
The city of Baghdad has experienced great conflict and sadness since the military invasion in 2003. But artists, musicians and book sellers are bringing beauty and knowledge back to the city. Liz Waid and Ruby Jones look at the art and culture of Baghdad. 
15m 1s
Jul 2020
The many colours of Raqqa
The untold story of Abood Hamam, perhaps the only photojournalist to have worked under every major force in Syria's war - and lived to tell the tale. At the start of the uprising he was head of photography for the state news agency, SANA, taking official shots of President Assad ... Show More
26m 50s
Apr 2021
The other caliphate
For five brutal months in 2017 the black flag of so-called Islamic State fluttered over a captured city, and thousands of lives were destroyed. But rather than Iraq or Syria, this was a reality in Marawi, in the Philippines. Anna Foster travels to the heart of a devastated commun ... Show More
50m 17s
May 2021
A mother, and a doctor, in Gaza
Najla Shawa is getting her young daughters to count the sounds of bombs at night — turning it into a game to try to soothe their fears. Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb is navigating rubble-strewn streets to deliver medical aid — made harder now that one of his clinics was damaged in ... Show More
23m 40s
May 2025
Children of ISIS fighter find new life in Minnesota
When ISIS was at its height, its ranks included several hundred Americans. They were often young men radicalized online by savvy marketing that promised free housing and the chance to meet a wife. When the Islamic State collapsed, some of them ended up in huge detention camps in ... Show More
22m 15s
Jun 2021
Syria’s decade of conflict: The many colours of Raqqa
Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the ten years of civil war in her country.In the final programme from the season Lina hears from BBC foreign correspondent Tim Whewell who spoke to Abood Hamam, perhaps the only ... Show More
27m 1s