Europe's migrant challenge

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Adie introduces stories from across Europe, Nepal, Ghana, and Moldova-Transnistria.

As countries across Europe harden their stance on immigration, Fergal Keane retraces the journeys refugees have taken over the years, including stories he has heard from Ireland, Syria, Turkey and Sweden.

Nepal’s government was dramatically overthrown in the deadliest unrest seen in the Himalayan country in decades, triggered by a social media ban and anger at corruption and high unemployment. Charlotte Scarr was in Kathmandu as the protests continued.

Ghana is the world’s largest importer of used clothing, with millions of garments arriving every week, donated from countries like the UK and US – but it’s often the quality, not the quantity which is proving a problem. Hannah Gelbart has been to Accra to see the impact of fast fashion.

And finally, in east Moldova is the self-declared separatist state of Transnistria. Home to around 350,000 people, the region broke away from Moldova in 1990 – though neither Moldova or the international community recognises its independence. Despite the schism, Transnistrians still have a say in what goes on in Moldova - and will be voting in next weekend’s election. Peter Yeung recently paid a visit.

Series Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello. Today we're in Nepal at the scene of Gen Z-led protests, triggered by a social media ban and the luxurious lives of political nepo babies.
0:17.7	In an age of recycling and upcycling, we hear why market traders in Ghana have had their
0:23.6	fill of charitable donations, and finally we're in the self-declared state of Transnistria, where citizens
0:30.4	still have a vote in the upcoming elections in Moldova. But first, migration has once again
0:37.1	been much in focus, with the government's one-in, one-out
0:40.9	policy off to a faltering start. More than 30,000 people have crossed the channel this year,
0:47.1	and during his state visit this week, US President Donald Trump suggested the UK employ the
0:53.1	military to stop illegal migration. Managing the irregular
0:57.5	movement of people is a challenge facing governments around the world. And here, Fergal Keene
1:03.3	retraces the migrant routes he has followed over the decades and the people he's met along the way.
1:13.5	The first thing I noticed was their accents.
1:17.1	They sounded to me like people on the television news.
1:20.3	In fact, they were the people from the news.
1:22.9	We'd seen them coming across the border and the pictures of houses burning,
1:25.7	the camps where they were given cups of tea and the pictures of our burning, the camps where they were given cups of tea,
1:28.1	and the pictures of our soldiers walking along small frontier lanes,
1:32.9	and our Taoiseach, Prime Minister, saying the Irish government could no longer stand by
1:37.6	and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.
1:42.1	That was August 1969, and in Northern Ireland, parts of Belfast and Derry were in flames.
1:49.1	Catholic neighbourhoods were under siege and 1500 families would flee into the Republic. I was eight years old,
1:57.2	staying in a small village on the southeast coast, dreaming my summer days away, swimming and fishing,
2:03.5	in the security of my grandmother's rented seaside cottage.
	...

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