Amar: Alone in the world

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2019

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He was known as “the little boy who lost everything”. In 1991, Amar Kanim’s disfigured face was shown on newspaper front pages around the world, an innocent young victim of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime. His entire family, it was reported, had died in a napalm attack. The British politician Emma Nicholson found him “alone in the world” during a visit to an aid camp. She took him to the UK. He was, the world assumed, an orphan. So who was the woman claiming he is her son?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you eaten anything?
0:02.0	No.
0:03.0	Or drunk anything?
0:04.0	No, the only thing I had that this morning.
0:06.0	That's fine.
0:07.0	Have you had any cigarettes?
0:08.0	No. Nothing.
0:09.0	Perfect.
0:10.0	You must be starving.
0:11.0	I'm always is.
0:12.0	I'm always is. Pull out one of those. A Mar Kanin is wiping a cotton wool
0:20.1	swap around the inside of his mouth taking a DNA sample.
0:25.0	I still have a good feeling about it to be honest, but this is just for my own peace of mind.
0:30.0	I'm feeling confident there would be a match.
0:32.0	The reflection that stares back at him from his bathroom mirror tells a story in itself
0:38.0	because his face is covered in scars.
0:42.1	Is it weird thinking that inside those envelopes are the answer
0:45.1	you've waited your lifetime to find out? Yeah it's exciting but as well
0:49.7	it's never reckon as well. For thousands of people around the world a DNA test is a simple way to explain
0:56.2	their family history but for a mar this could reveal if he has any family at all.
1:04.0	Peel the sticky stuff off the back of the envelope.
1:07.8	Okay.
	...

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