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Outlook: I Survived a River Exorcism

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Nuzo Onoh

01/09/2016 GMT

I Survived a River Exorcism

BBC World Service - Outlook, I Survived a River Exorcism

Nuzo Onoh's mother arranged an exorcism for her when she was just 13

When Nuzo was just a young girl, her mother feared she was possessed by a demon and arranged an exorcism for her. Nuzo has turned the experience into a work of horror fiction.

Nuzo Onoh is a writer of African Horror stories. Although she has lived in the UK for many years, she was raised in the Igbo culture of southern Nigeria - in the area called Biafra that fought unsuccessfully for independence in the 1960s. Nuzo was a child then, and her turbulent experience of those years is reflected in her latest novel - The Sleepless. It tells the story of a little girl called Obele who befriends a gang of ghosts. 

Frogs have had a big part to play in Gilbert Adum's life - and he has had a big part to play in theirs. He is one of very few amphibian biologists in Ghana, and - as the co-founder of Save the Frogs Ghana - is trying to get people to think differently about them.  

When Anglican priest Dave Smith took over the parish of Dulwich Hill in the suburbs of the Australian city of Sydney 26 years ago, it was a tough place. If he was going to get through to the troubled young people there, he was going to need something other than sermons. He turned to a hobby that had come to mean a lot to him...boxing. He now uses his skills as a boxer to help troubled teenagers in Australia and displaced youths in Syria. You can find more at fatherdave.org

Layla Mustapha is from Tal Abyad in northern Syria - she is a 27-year-old engineering graduate - and is now co-mayor of her hometown. It had been under the control of so called Islamic State but was recaptured  last year by Syrian Kurdish forces. At the time, Layla was living in another northern city, Qamishli - but as soon as she heard the jihadists had been kicked out, she made the difficult decision to go back. 

(Photo: Nuzo Onoh, writer of African horror stories, with kind permission from Nuzo Onoh)

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