Tracing Ukraine’s missing people
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Ukraine, rights groups are reporting growing numbers of missing civilians in areas occupied by Russia. Many are believed to have been taken to Russian prisons, but the husbands, wives and relatives are left behind, scouring news bulletins and online message boards in a desperate attempt to track them down. Bel Trew met some of them. The UK government is being urged to make a formal apology for alleged war crimes by British troops in historical Palestine nearly a century ago. The petition is being brought by an elderly Palestinian business owner who was shot and wounded by UK forces as a boy. Tom Bateman came across the vivid accounts of some of the soldiers. The sinking of a government-owned Senegalese ferry, the Joola, in 2002 took more lives than the infamous Titanic - leaving 1,800 people dead. Subsequent inquiries highlighted poor safety measures and the overcrowding of the boat as major factors in the disaster. Our correspondent, Efrem Gebreab met two of the survivors in Senegal. Sporadic protests have been taking place across Cuba amid a nationwide blackout following Hurricane Ian. Cuba's economy had been brought to its knees due to economic mismanagement and the impact of Covid-19. And the recent disaster at the island’s biggest fuel depot meant a powerful hurricane was the last thing the weary Cuban people needed, says Will Grant. Naples in Southern Italy is renowned for its Roman ruins but what about its Greek heritage? Part of an ancient Greek cemetery, discovered under a 19th century palazzo has now been opened to the public. Julia Buckley went to visit the intricately decorated tombs.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts |
| 0:05.3 | Today we hear how a Palestinian business owner is seeking an apology for alleged war crimes |
| 0:11.7 | by British troops nearly a hundred years ago. A woman tells us the story of how she survived |
| 0:19.0 | Senegal's worst ferry disaster in which hundreds drowned. Cubans are taking to the streets in |
| 0:26.4 | cities across the country over past shortages caused by Hurricane Ian and a series of explosions |
| 0:33.1 | at a fuel depot. And we hear about the discovery of an ancient necropolis buried underneath a |
| 0:40.3 | palazzo in southern Italy which is finally open to visitors. First Ukraine, where eight months |
| 0:48.5 | into the war, rights groups are reporting growing numbers of missing Ukrainian civilians in areas |
| 0:55.2 | that have been occupied by Russia. From the earliest days of the invasion many are believed to |
| 1:01.2 | have been taken to Russian prisons, with the husbands, wives and relatives left behind, |
| 1:07.2 | scarring news bulletins and online message boards in a desperate attempt to track them down. |
| 1:14.3 | They rely on arbitrary prisoner swaps for any new information as to the whereabouts of those |
| 1:20.5 | who have disappeared. On Monday, one such prisoner swaps or a hundred Ukrainian women released, |
| 1:28.2 | dozens of whom had been captured at the steelworks in Mariupol in May. But often relatives face an |
| 1:35.4 | interminable weight, not knowing if their loved ones are dead or alive. Bell True was in Ukraine's northeast. |
| 1:43.8 | All day, every day, Maria trolls through photos of dead bodies posted online as part of the |
| 1:51.0 | desperate hunt for her missing husband. She hasn't seen Maxime who was a builder since the 17th of March, |
| 1:57.6 | early on in the invasion, when Russian soldiers turned up at their house and took him away. She |
| 2:02.9 | doesn't know where, and since then her life has shrunk to the width of her mobile phone screen. |
| 2:08.8 | Sitting hunched on a grubby sofa in a village in northeast Ukraine, all she can try to do is |
| 2:14.0 | gather scraps of information online. Sometimes that means scrolling through this parade of horrors |
| 2:19.5 | to check whether any of those corpses photographed by Russians might be Maxime. |
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