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The Audio Long Read

‘Any other child would have died’: the miraculous survival of Nada Itrab

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.22.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After a nine-year-old girl was kidnapped and taken from Spain to Bolivia, authorities feared the worst. They found her in the rainforest nine months later – but that wasn’t the end of her ordeal By Giles Tremlett. Read by Norah Lopez Holden. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:08.7

This article contains references to child trafficking and suicide.

0:13.6

Take care when listening.

0:16.0

Welcome to The Guardian Long Read,

0:18.1

showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.

0:22.8

For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the Guardian.com forward slash long read.

0:31.8

Any other child would have died. The miraculous survival of Nada Itrab by Giles Tremlet, read by Nora Lopez Holden.

0:49.7

On the 27th of August, 2013, a tall, spirited nine-year-old girl with long, well-brushed hair

0:57.2

boarded an overnight coach in Barcelona. Nada Itraab was bright and observant. At school,

1:05.1

she regularly came top of her class. Even now, she carried a notebook, eager to record the thing she would discover on this trip.

1:14.1

She'd been given a camera too, a cheap, lilac-coloured digital model, which, since she was unused to luxuries, seemed to her like a treasure.

1:35.3

In eight hours, Nader would be at Barajas Airport in the Spanish capital, Madrid. She would take her first flight, heading for Bolivia's largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra. To her, the trip was an adventure,

1:46.7

like something from the storybooks that she read at her local library in Los Pitalete Yobrigat, a city just south of Barcelona. The daughter of undocumented

1:54.6

immigrants from Morocco, Nada had lived there since she was four. Only one other person was travelling with Nada.

2:03.8

Grover Morales was a neighbour with a saintly heir.

2:07.7

In La Florida, the poor neighbourhood in which he and Nada's family lived,

2:12.5

Morales made a point of greeting everyone regardless of race or faith.

2:17.4

He read religious books, not just the Christian

2:20.1

Bible, but also the Torah and the Quran. He made Nada's family food. He had installed a bath for them

2:27.2

with his own hands. For Morales, a Bolivian man in his mid-30s, this was a business and family trip. He was going home to

2:37.0

pick up jewelry and bring it back to sell, or so he said. He offered to take Nader as a reward for her

2:43.6

excellent schoolwork. They would be back in a week. Her parents signed a notarized document

...

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