Original version

BBC World Service Online

From Our Own Correspondent

News

Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers.

Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.

From Our Own Correspondent: Catalonia and Somalia

Catalonia and Somalia

03/03/2014

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Catalonia and Somalia

Catalan opinions on independence; a visit to a Somali psychiatric hospital

Rachel McCormack visits old friends in Catalonia to gauge their thoughts on independence; Mary Harper meets a Somali man with three months' training running a psychiatric hospital

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has declared a planned Catalan referendum on independence from Spain would be "illegal". Rachel McCormack, who lived in Barcelona for some time, catches up with old friends to find out which way they would vote - and to rediscover the art of a good old-fashioned Catalan argument. 

One in three Somalis has experienced a mental health problem, according to estimates from the World Health Organisation. Yet with a lack of funding for specialist care, makeshift solutions abound - including chaining patients, or caging them with hyenas to 'cure' them. Mary Harper meets a man in Mogadishu who started a more compassionate mental health hospital - after just three months' training. 

(Photo: Inside Habeb's mental hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, Credit: Mary Harper)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

From Our Own Correspondent

Catalonia and Somalia

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service