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The Fifth Floor

Factual: Life Stories

Global stories from the BBC’s 40 Language Services, with Faranak Amidi

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services.

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services

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The Fifth Floor: Yazidi mothers: an impossible choice

Documentaries

Yazidis community celebrating

07/06/2019 GMT

Yazidi mothers: an impossible choice

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Yazidi mothers: an impossible choice

Enslaved by IS, and now free to go home, if they leave their children behind

Enslaved by IS, and now free to go home, if they leave their children behind.

In 2014, so-called Islamic State attacked the Yazidi religious group in northern Iraq, killing hundreds of men and capturing around 6,000 women and children.  The women were used as sex slaves and although many are now free it’s emerged that the price of returning home is giving up the children fathered by their IS captors.  BBC Persian journalist Nafiseh Kohnivard spent a year investigating the story for her documentary The Yazidis’ Secret Children. 

Celebrating Russian Language Day
Who or what is the Professor of Cabbage soup?  To celebrate Russian Language Day BBC Russian's Anya Dorodeyko and Famil Ismailov put some intriguing Russian idioms to our language service colleagues; Prudent Nsengiyumva of BBC Africa Great Lakes, Lucia Blasco of BBC Mundo,  Issariya Praithongyaem of BBC Thai and BBC Bengali's Moazzem Hossein.

Independence for Western Togoland?
In the Volta region of Ghana separatist groups are campaigning for an independent state of Western Togoland.  BBC Africa's Sulley Lansah, who has family links with the area, has been finding out why. 

Nicaragua's unlikely folk song hit
‘Son tus perjumenes mujer’ is a Nicaraguan folk song which topped the charts around the Spanish speaking world in the summer of 1977.   BBC Mundo’s Arturo Wallace explains why this unremarkable folk song had such resonance at that time.

Egypt's record breaking hockey team
The Al Sharqiya hockey team has won more titles than any other African or Arab team, but some Egyptians are unaware of them.  BBC Arabic's Amr Fekry met the team and discovered a city obsessed with hockey.    

Meeting the women who keep Kabul clean 
BBC Afghan’s Zuhal Ahad celebrates the women working in Kabul as streetcleaners and bangle sellers who are often ignored or despised because they work in the public eye.

Photo: Yazidis community celebrating in Iraq
Credit: BBC

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