Original version

BBC World Service Australasia

From Our Own Correspondent

News

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

From Our Own Correspondent: A fight for survival in Somalia

Magazines & Reviews

08/10/2022 GMT

A fight for survival in Somalia

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, A fight for survival in Somalia

Famine looms in the city of Baidoa; plus stories from India, China and Lithuania

Drought, disease and violence surround the city of Baidoa; an outrage and an outcry in northern India; China’s media straitjacket tightens; beach-combing for amber in Lithuania.

Pascale Harter introduces correspondents’ stories from Somalia, India, China and Lithuania.

Once, Baidoa was a trading hub, renowned for its sorghum and livestock markets. Now it’s feeling the impact of Somalia's worst drought for decades, as thousands of families who’ve lost nearly everything arrive to pitch their shelters and look for humanitarian aid. Andrew Harding recently got a view of the many dangers surrounding the city, and Somalia as a whole: the threat of famine, outbreaks of disease, and the armed militants of al Shabaab.

The lives of women and girls in rural India are governed by many conservative social norms, which often restrict where they may go, when, and in whose company. Cases of violence against women have often been explained away by besmirching the victims’ character. Geeta Pandey reports from Uttar Pradesh on the aftermath of a double murder of two sisters who’d been abducted and raped before they were killed – which has convulsed the state.
 
Working as a journalist in the People’s Republic of China has rarely been easy; but over the last few years the limits on foreign reporters have been drawn ever more tightly. Wherever Stephen McDonell and his team have gone recently, they’ve been given new reasons for cancelled interviews, official stonewalling and refused access.

And on the shores of the Baltic sea, Heidi Fuller Love joins a beachcomber hoping to pull riches from the depths. The treasure seekers Lithuanians call 'ginatarautojai' might not earn fortunes, but there’s enough profit in the amber to be found on the coastline to make braving the cold and the wet worthwhile.

Producer: Polly Hope
Editor: Richard Fenton Smith
Production Co-Ordinator: Iona Hammond

Accessibility links

Programme Index

From Our Own Correspondent

A fight for survival in Somalia

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Australasia

About BBC World Service