Fleeing Afghanistan alone as a child

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

On 31st October 2004, Uruguayans voted to enshrine water as a human right in their constitution, the first country in the world to do so. The so-called water referendum was organised by an alliance of residents' associations, trade unions, scientists, and environmentalists. Campa ...  Show more

Dr. Waheed Arian, a doctor and radiologist, endured a challenging upbringing in war-torn Afghanistan, and at 15, he was smuggled to the UK. He had a singular ambition: to become a doctor. In a heartfelt conversation with Jake and Damian, he candidly reveals the harsh realities ...

War and extreme poverty drive millions of people from their homes every year. Some of them try to reach the rich Western world, where such inward migration routinely prompts fear and draconian counter-measures. Stephen Sackur interviews Waheed Arian, who fled war in Afghanistan a ...  Show more

Gaisu fled the Taliban when she was 18. Now she's fleeing again. Speaking to the BBC's Tamasin Ford, Gaisu recounts being engaged to the son of a local warlord at age 6, fleeing to the United States at 18, and then returning as a civil servant after the Taliban were toppled. She ...  Show more

Many of the WW2 generation faced hardship in their youth (they did spend their childhood in the Great Depression), but few had as bad of an early life as Denis Elliott, who became an RAF Flight Lieutenant. At age three he was placed in a brutal and abusive orphanage in London and ...  Show more