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From Our Own Correspondent: Escaping North Korea

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Escaping North Korea

08/04/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Escaping North Korea

One family's years of trying to flee Pyongyang; tales from Nigeria, Colombia and Germany

One family's struggle to leave North Korea; Nigeria's villages beset by bandits; a time-honoured journey along Colombia's Magdalena River; and why Germany is relaxed about nudity

Pascale Harter introduces personal stories, analysis and wit from correspondents and writers in Korea, Nigeria, Colombia and Germany.

Leaving North Korea has never been easy - but since the start of the Covid pandemic, Kim Jong-un has kept the country even more hermetically sealed from the rest of the world than usual. In Seoul, Jean Mackenzie met one of the last North Koreans to escape the country before the Covid lockdown froze North Korea's borders - and reveals the story of one family's reunion, which was years in the making.

Nigeria's president-elect Bola Tinubu has a number of crises to deal with - from separatist movements in the Niger Delta, to the ongoing counter-insurgency fighting Boko Haram rebels in the northeast. Until recently, life in the rural north-west was relatively peaceful - but as Alex Last heard on a return visit to the region, villagers there are now having to arm themselves against ever more frequent attacks by groups of armed bandits.

The historic town of Mompox, in Colombia, was once one of the wealthiest spots in all the Americas - growing fat on the proceeds of global trade and slavery. But then the River Magdalena, which runs through it, changed its course, and the fortunes of Mompox declined. Sara Wheeler caught a ferry along the river to hear many tales of its historic highs and lows.

And from Berlin, the BBC's Germany correspondent Jenny Hill lays bare some of the reasons why the country is generally so relaxed about nudity in public. From the heritage of freikorperkultur - 'free body culture' - movement of the 20th century, to the egalitarian spirit of today, German attitudes towards going without clothes often surprise foreign visitors.

Producer: Polly Hope
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Production Co-Ordinator: Helena Warwick-Close

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