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Trending: Nigerians discuss: bird, witch or victim?

Nigerians discuss: bird, witch or victim?

18/10/2014

BBC World Service - Trending, Nigerians discuss: bird, witch or victim?

How Nigerians “saw” a bird fly into an electrical wire and turn into a woman.

How Nigerians “saw” a bird fly into an electrical wire and turn into a woman; Syrian poetic song calling for unity; Kurds’ response to the siege of Syrian town of #Kobane

Videos circulated this week in Nigeria and Ghana of a woman sprawled on the ground, covered in blood, her skin burnt and peeling. She was surrounded by a crowd taking pictures and videos of her, on a street in Oshodi, Lagos. But how did she get there in that state? On Twitter the rumours were that a bird hit an electrical wire and fell to ground as a woman - she apparently confessed to being a witch. 

Online views are mixed - some accept she must have been a witch, others ask for evidence, some think it's funny, while there are those that say - there is no witchcraft, this woman was attacked. 

In this week’s programme the presenter Mukul Devichand takes a closer look at the incident and online reaction. Could the police and crowd have done more to help the woman? Will social media change attitudes to such incidents in Nigeria?

Also this week, we speak to two Syrian sisters, currently leaving in Sweden, about their video “To Our Countries”. In it, they sing and quote poetry in Arabic and ask the people of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine to unite in the midst of conflict in the region. 

And #Kobane was trending this week. It was used over 1 million times on Twitter in response to the ongoing siege of the Syrian town of Kobane where Kurdish militia are fighting the Islamic State. We find out how Kurds unite and converse on social media when we speak to a pro-Kurdish activist Mark Campbell, the creator of #TwitterKurds, a hashtag that has never strayed far from the top trends over the last three years.

Mukul Devichand is joined in the studio by Charlotte McDonald from the Trending Team and Mamdouh Akbiek from BBC Arabic. 

The programme was produced by Anna Meisel

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