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The Documentary: Amar: Alone in the world

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Amar Kanim

25/05/2019 GMT

Amar: Alone in the world

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Amar: Alone in the world

Amar was orphaned in an Iraqi bombing so who is the woman claiming he is her son?

He was known as “the little boy who lost everything”. In 1991, Amar Kanim’s disfigured face was shown on newspaper front pages around the world, an innocent young victim of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime. His entire family, it was reported, had died in a napalm attack. The British politician Emma Nicholson found him “alone in the world” during a visit to an aid camp. She took him to the UK. He was, the world assumed, an orphan.
 
Amar’s story unfolded, captured by TV cameras - a new life.

But no-one has told Zahra’s story. Zahra is a mother. She had to bury a daughter, killed in that napalm attack. Her son is also missing. But without his body, she held on to a desperate hope he might still be alive. Despite displacement and losing another son, she pressed her government, charities and the media for over 30 years to help find him, without success. Her brothers told her to give up. She says at points she lost her mind.
 
Then one day, clutching a picture of the missing boy, she sees a television crew. She interrupts their live TV report to share her story. This generates appeals on social media and a message is sent to Amar who is living alone, unemployed, in south-west England. BBC news correspondent Jon Kay joins Zahra and Amar as they search for the truth – to find out if they are really the missing mother and son they have each yearned for over three decades.

(Photo: Amar Kanim looking over the Iraqi landscape)

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