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From Our Own Correspondent

Ukraine's summer camp for children of the missing

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kate Adie introduces stories from Ukraine, Japan, Bahrain and Croatia.

Nestled in the forest, far away from falling bombs is a pioneering summer camp for Ukrainian children whose parents have gone missing during the war. A Ukrainian charity is working to give them some relief – and much needed support – to help them cope with the ongoing uncertainty of not knowing where their parents are. Will Vernon visited the camp where art, exercise and self-expression are all vital to the healing process.

It’s 80 years since the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to the end of World War II. Some 200,000 people were killed - but the bombing had other long-lasting effects. Jordan Dunbar travelled to Hiroshima to speak to survivors who shared their stories of discrimination and social stigma.

Bahrain has just one synagogue - The House of the Ten Commandments. The building was destroyed back in 1947 in a wave of communal violence, but after several decades, it was eventually restored and re-opened its doors again a few years ago. Today the synagogue serves people of all faiths, finds Iram Ramzan.

The tiny Croatian island of Krapanj has long been renowned for its tradition of sponge diving, shaping the island’s identity for hundreds of years. Today, this trade is under threat from climate change and over-fishing. Mary Novakovich met one of the island’s remaining divers, determined to keep the culture alive.

Series producer: Farhana Haider Production Coordinators: Sophie Hill & Katie Morrison Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

0:05.2

Hello, today we're in Bahrain to attend Shabbat service in the Kingdom's Only Synagogue, where people of all faiths are welcome.

0:14.5

In Hiroshima, we speak to survivors of the atomic bomb, under social stigma they faced growing up. And we're in the blue waters of the Adri bomb, and the social stigma they faced growing up.

0:22.1

And we're in the blue waters of the Adriatic Sea, where sponge divers on the Croatian

0:28.0

island of Cropania are fighting to hold on to their centuries-old tradition.

0:33.5

But first to Ukraine, where according to the Ukrainian government, more than 70,000 people have

0:40.2

gone missing during the war, leaving families anxious for news of their loved ones. Among those

0:46.7

affected, other children of soldiers missing in action, or whose parents have been arrested

0:52.3

by Russian authorities.

0:59.7

Psychologists say they're among some of the most traumatised children they've worked with.

1:05.4

But a Ukrainian charity is trying to give them some relief and much-needed support to help them cope with the ongoing uncertainty of not knowing what's happened to their parents.

1:12.3

Will Vernon was given exclusive access to a pioneering summer camp,

1:17.3

where art, exercise and self-expression are central to the healing process.

1:22.8

At nine o'clock sharp, silence descends.

1:26.8

Across the country, every single day, many Ukrainians interrupt their mourning

1:31.2

and take a minute to remember the fallen in this war.

1:35.3

For the children attending this summer camp, the ritual is even more poignant.

1:40.1

All of them have a parent who's disappeared in the war,

1:43.3

soldiers missing in action are in captivity,

1:46.0

civilians lost in shelling or trapped while living under Russian occupation.

1:50.7

On the way to the camp, we pass cemetery after cemetery filled with fresh graves,

1:55.9

yellow and blue flags rippling in the wind as the road winds through the Carpathian mountains. The exact

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