America's Border Camps for Children
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the United States Mexico border, the dilemmas of how to treat migrant families arriving without papers are still acute. A BBC investigation has found hundreds of undocumented children were being detained in a camp in the Texan desert that's been ridden with disease, overcrowded, and plagued by a shortage of clean clothes and medical care. Hilary Andersson has been investigating the conditions inside Fort Bliss, El Paso.
Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez took a momentous decision this week: to pardon nine Catalan pro-independence leaders who were jailed for their role in a bid to break away from Spain in 2017. The pardons are meant to soothe national tensions over the issue, but as Guy Hedgecoe reports from Madrid, the reactions to them reflected some deeply-held feelings across the country.
As Afghanistan’s leaders met Joseph Biden at the White House on Friday the mood in Kabul was edgy. The Taliban are still extending their reach and hold on Afghan territory, gaining new ground each day. For the Afghan media it’s a particularly nervous time after a spate of targeted killings of journalists. During such dangerous days, a recent invitation to the corridors of power in Kabul got Karim Haidari thinking.
In late December last year a black man was killed by police in Dublin. George Nkencho was followed home after he assaulted someone in a shop and pulled out a knife. He was shot near his front door. The Irish police are mostly unarmed, and this was the sixth fatal shooting by a member of the force in 22 years. But there are questions over whether race may have been a factor in the incident. Stephanie Hegarty met George Nkencho’s family as they were pushing for an independent inquiry into his death.
Hasankeyf in southeastern Turkey is one of humanity's oldest urban settlements - inhabited for at least twelve thousand years. Or at least old Hasankeyf was - until it was flooded by the waters built up behind the controversial Ilisu Dam. Some original monuments – its bathhouse and remnants of a 14th-century mosque, as well as over 500 graves - were rescued, but many local people wonder whether too much of its special character has been lost forever. Michelle Jana Chan went to see what remains.
Producer: Polly Hope
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.2 | Today in Spain we hear there are official patterns for Catalan politicians, but many voters |
| 0:11.6 | don't feel so forgiving. |
| 0:13.8 | In Afghanistan the press are invited to the palace in an unusual charm offensive in Kabul. |
| 0:21.4 | There are questions about race in Ireland after a police shooting and the reaction to it. |
| 0:27.7 | And what's been lost to history since the flooding of the Aliso Dam in Turkey? |
| 0:34.0 | First to the border between the United States and Mexico, where the dilemma of how to |
| 0:38.6 | treat migrant families arriving without papers is still acute. |
| 0:43.2 | Looking after unaccompanied minors is a particular problem. |
| 0:47.0 | A BBC investigation found hundreds of undocumented children being detained in a camp in the |
| 0:52.8 | Texan desert that's ridden with disease, it's overcrowded and with a shortage of clean |
| 0:58.7 | clothes and medical care. |
| 1:00.9 | The camp at Fort Bliss in El Paso in Texas was set up in March and some staff working |
| 1:07.3 | there have spoken out over their worries for the children's health and safety. |
| 1:11.8 | Hillary Anderson has been hearing about the conditions inside. |
| 1:16.4 | As you fly into El Paso in the remote western reaches of Texas, a majestic mountain rises |
| 1:23.0 | out of the vast and inhospitable Chihuahuan desert. |
| 1:27.0 | Through the mountain runs a pass. |
| 1:29.4 | I studied the pass as we descended. |
| 1:32.2 | Maybe from the mountain road I'd be high enough to see the children's camp. |
| 1:36.3 | The camp is set deep inside a sprawling military base known as Fort Bliss. |
| 1:41.8 | But blissful it is not. |
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