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From Our Own Correspondent: Brazil's steady stream of grief

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Brazil's steady stream of grief

30/01/2021 GMT

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Brazil's steady stream of grief

Covid ravages the city of Manaus. Plus stories from Afghanistan, India and DR Congo

The Amazonian city of Manaus reels from a second wave of Covid infections. Plus: fear stalks Afghanistan; India's farmers protest; and child miners sift for gold in DR Congo

The city of Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon, was hard hit by its first wave of Covid infections last year - now it's reeling from a second wave far larger and more deadly than many had predicted. Katy Watson has been there to hear from the bereaved and witness the struggles of the living to keep their health system even close to functioning. 

Pascale Harter introduces this and other dispatches from correspondents, journalists and writers around the world. 

You might think that a woman who'd survived the Taliban's rule, gone on to be the first female film-director in Afghanistan, braved social disapproval by working as an actor and then signed up to the Afghan police force would be fearless. But Saba Sahar is afraid now - because recently, she only narrowly survived an assassination attempt. Gunmen fired on her, her two bodyguards and her young daughter as they drove through Kabul. The BBC's Yogita Limaye talks to a remarkable woman about her enduring worries - for herself, her family and her country -  after a string of targeted killings.

India's Republic Day ceremonies are usually full of pomp and ritual - but this year the official events were dramatically upstaged by a 'tractor rally' called by angry farmers. The protesters have been demonstrating in Delhi for weeks against moves to reform India's agricultural sector. The tractor rally overspilled its agreed route and was aggressively dispersed by police. Raijini Vaidyanathan asked some of the farmers, and their supporters, about the root causes of their discontent. 

Child labour is illegal in the Democratic Republic of Congo - but all the same, there are tens of thousands of children at work in the country's mines. Near Luhihi, in the east of the country, Olivia Acland recently talked to a couple of teenage boys hoping to strike it lucky... as they spend what should be their schooldays sifting through the spoil from a local gold mine.

(Image: A gravedigger works at the Parque Taruma cemetery during the coronavirus outbreak in Manaus, Brazil, Credit: Reuters/Bruno Kelly)

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