In Nigeria, thousands of young people are addicted to codeine cough syrup – a medicine that’s become a street drug. The Nigerian senate estimates that 3 million bottles of codeine syrup are drunk every day in just two states – Kano and Jigawa. But who makes this syrup? And who sells it to Nigeria’s students? BBC Africa Eye went undercover to investigate.
Thousands of women across West Africa have been enslaved by a centuries old practice called “trokosi”. Girls are forced to live and work with priests in religious shrines, for the rest of their lives, to “pay” for the sins of family members. Although the practice has officially been banned in Ghana, it’s still happening there and in other parts of West Africa but on a smaller scale. Twenty years after she was freed from this practice, Brigitte Sossou Perenyi goes on a journey to understand what trokosi really is and why her family gave her away.
Almost one hundred football officials across West Africa and Kenya have been caught on camera accepting cash in a sting operation. It’s part of a two-year long undercover investigation by controversial Ghanaian journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas. BBC Africa Eye has had exclusive access to the footage for their latest documentary. In one case a World Cup bound assistant referee from Kenya accepted six hundred dollars from a man posing as an official of a Ghanaian premiership team.
Hundreds of shocking mobile phone videos from Cameroon have surfaced in the past six months. They are coming from the English speaking part of the country, where rebels are fighting to form an independent state called "Ambazonia". BBC Africa Eye have analysed these films, shedding fresh light on who is responsible for the violence.
It's is one of the poorest parts of South Africa. But poverty is not the biggest problem here. Dieplsoot is the most dangerous part of South Africa — especially if you are a woman.
BBC Africa Eye’s latest investigation goes undercover in the Somali neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, to expose a form of religious healing gone badly wrong. Islamic rehab centres offer treatment to people suffering from addiction or mental health problems. But Somali reporter Jamal Osman discovers that, behind the closed doors of one rehab clinic, patients are routinely abused, beaten, and forced to drink a toxic liquid called harmala.
On a riverbank in rural Malawi, police find a headless corpse – one of dozens of victims apparently killed for body parts used in ritual magic. Legendary Ghanaian journalist Anas Arameyaw Anas and local reporter Henry Mhango set out to investigate the deaths, and to find out who profits from these brutal killings.
In 2017, mobile footage of a plain-clothed policeman gunning down two apparently unarmed men went viral in Kenya. But who is this cop and what prompted the shooting? BBC Africa Eye joins controversial officer Ahmed Rashid as he seeks to rid the streets of gangsters and criminals. For the first time cameras are allowed to follow his team in action in the Somali neighbourhood of Eastleigh, Nairobi. We hear from those who praise his unit and those who condemn them for what they say are a spate of extra-judicial killings.
In July 2018 a horrifying video began to circulate on social media. It shows two women and two young children being led away at gunpoint by a group of Cameroonian soldiers. The captives are blindfolded, forced to the ground, and shot 22 times. The government of Cameroon initially dismissed the video as “fake news.” But BBC Africa Eye, through forensic analysis of the footage, can prove exactly where this happened, when it happened, and who is responsible for the killings.
Dozens of people were killed in clashes with government forces across the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016. They were protesting President Joseph Kabila's decision to postpone elections for another two years. Africa Eye follows the leading members of a non - violent citizen group called La Lucha, who campaign for political reform in DRC and for Kabila to step down. But will their call for free and fair elections ever become a reality?
Former Burundian intelligence agents say that the country’s security services are running secret torture and detention sites to silence dissent. Using cutting edge reconstruction techniques BBC Africa Eye examines one house in particular, which was filmed in a video posted on social media in 2016. A red liquid, which looked like blood, was seen pouring from its gutter. We ask if Burundi’s repression of opponents has now gone underground? The government has always denied any human rights violations, and declined to comment for this report.
A heroin-based drug cocktail called nyaope is destroying young lives in South Africa’s townships. Our reporter Golden Mtika finds an old family friend, Jesus, addicted to the drug and scavenging in an open sewer. While Jesus goes into rehab, Golden goes in search of the dealers who bribe the police and push the drug. But will Jesus get clean?
As the latest outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus continues to spread in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this remarkable film reveals the full horror of a full-scale Ebola epidemic - that which hit Sierra Leone in 2014. By the time it was brought under control, eighteen months later, more than 3,500 were dead and thousands more infected. The film begins as Ebola arrives in one of Sierra Leone’s main towns, Makeni, home to a local film-maker Tyson Conteh. Tyson and his film crew risked their lives to record at close quarters the tragedy unfolding around them. Sadly, not all of the film-makers survived. But what they recorded over months of filming isn’t just recent history - “Standing Among the Living” provides a grim warning for the future.
These are images Sudan’s government does not want you to see: teams of masked, plainclothes agents chasing down protesters, beating them, and dragging them off to secret detention centres in Khartoum. Who are these hit squads? Where are these detention centres? And what happens inside their walls? BBC Africa Eye has analysed dozens of dramatic videos filmed during the recent uprising, and spoken with witnesses who have survived torture at the hands of the Bashir regime. Some of these protesters tell us about a secret and widely feared holding facility – The Fridge – where the cold is used an instrument of torture.
Nigeria is Africa's largest producer of oil and natural gas - yet about half of the country’s population has no access to electricity, and those that do face daily power cuts that can last for hours on end. Meet the men and women on the front line of Nigeria’s energy crisis as they battle public anger and a decaying infrastructure in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil hub.
A BBC Africa Eye investigation has revealed that at least six candidates were offered money by Russians in the lead up to last year’s presidential elections in Madagascar. The presence of Russian political strategists with close ties to the Kremlin, posing as tourists with the alleged aim of helping to control the tightly fought race, has raised questions whether democracy in the former French colony has been fatally compromised.
Night runners have been terrorising rural communities across Kenya for generations. But no one knows who they are or what motivates them. Africa Eye investigates one of Kenya's most enduring mysteries.
In Uganda, young women are leaving their homes to try and find jobs as domestic workers, but for some their new lives can lead to mistreatment and abuse. A charity in Kenya is calling for the introduction of laws to protect domestic workers, commonly referred to as 'housegirls', to ensure their safety. For BBC Africa Eye, reporter Nancy Kacungira has been investigating why young women living near Uganda's border are leaving their villages to find work in Kenya.
Senegal has been rocked by a scandal involving a notorious businessman and one of the world's biggest energy companies. Africa Eye investigates the suspicious deal that may have cost Senegalese people billions of dollars.
Everyone in Uganda is entitled to free medicine to combat killer diseases like malaria. Despite Government efforts to improve access to essential medicines, a significant number of people have to use private facilities because of frequent stockouts. BBC Africa Eye headed undercover to expose one of the reasons why there is shortage of life saving drugs – medicine theft by medical professionals. Africa Eye worked together with the Ugandan investigative journalist, Solomon Serwanjja.
Nigeria is in the grip of a kidnapping epidemic. Thousands of Nigerians have fallen victim and millions of dollars in ransoms have been paid. But the Intelligence Response Team, led by a man nicknamed "Nigeria's Super Cop", are taking the fight to the kidnappers. Is the unit the solution to Nigeria's kidnap crisis? BBC Africa's Kunle Falayi has been given exclusive access to the unit.
The BBC has uncovered evidence that suggests the attack on protesters in Sudan on June 3rd was ordered from the top and planned in advance. Internet is now back on in the country so even more footage has emerged online. BBC Africa Eye has analysed over 300 mobile phone videos shot in Khartoum that morning, piecing them together into a detailed account of a massacre in which dozens of people were killed.
In 2016 Gambians showed the world the power of democracy when they removed President Yahya Jammeh through the ballot box. Now there are concerns the new President Adama Barrow may also try and cling to power.
Sports Betting has exploded across Africa. But are the betting companies playing it straight? Do the punters really understand the odds they’re up against? And who is getting rich from the thrill of the beautiful game? BBC Africa Eye follows one young football fan on a journey across Uganda, to find out what happens when global companies target some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on the continent. Collins Muhinda has been betting on football since he was a kid – but on this journey, he discovers an industry that can have a devastating impact on the lives of young Africans, and an epidemic of compulsive gambling that makes him question his own betting habits.
BBC Africa Eye investigates sexual harassment on campus. Our journalists have been undercover in two of Africa's most prestigious universities. With scenes of a sexual nature, their findings are disturbing. (12+)
BBC News Arabic’s undercover investigation exposes the people in Kuwait breaking local and international laws on modern slavery, including a woman offering a child for sale. At the centre of this powerful investigative film is Fatou, a 16 year old in Kuwait City who has been there for nine months. We follow her rescue and journey back home to Guinea, West Africa and ask: what’s being done to control the apps promoted on Google, Apple and Facebook-owned Instagram?
Jamal Osman, a Somali journalist, has watched his country being torn apart by civil war for three decades. He thought that in Kismayo, a city in Jubbaland, southern Somalia, he had found a society which offered up hope of an end to the cycle of violence. But a horrific al-Shabab attack on the city’s Madina Hotel in July this year, which left 26 dead and 56 injured, shattered the fragile hope of lasting security in the region. As part of Jamal’s journey into Jubbaland, he meets alleged al-Shabab fighters in prison as well as a Jubbaland army unit made up of former al-Shabab members, now supporting the government.
BBC Africa Eye uncovered an illegal network that lures women to India from Africa, where they are then forced into sex work to satisfy the demands of the many African men living in Delhi. The women are mostly from Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda. One woman, Grace, who was trafficked from Kenya, agreed to go undercover.
In the DRC’s capital city, wrestling has helped an extraordinary woman to escape the violent streets on which she grew up. As a fighter, Shaki is an inspiration for dozens of street children, and her home has become a refuge for girls trying to escape the thugs, rapists, and pimps of Kinshasa’s slums. BBC Africa Eye follows Shaki as she steps into the wrestling ring, fights to give her daughter a chance in life, and takes on other women who have very different ideas about how to raise teenage girls.
The rosewood tree is one of the most trafficked species on earth. When it's cut it bleeds a blood-red sap. Having exhausted stocks elsewhere, Chinese traders have turned to West Africa, especially southern Senegal, where trees are cut down and smuggled into neighbouring Gambia and then all the way onto China. For a year BBC Africa Eye, with Umaru Fofana, has been investigating the million-dollar trade in trafficked rosewood.
Dreams of ordinary Africans are demolished, as a construction giant collapses. But a leaked computer drive containing thousands of emails, messages and documents rings alarm bells about how the firm was run. Do the British bosses, who deny all allegations, have questions to answer?
Mathare, one of the biggest slums in Nairobi, is facing an outbreak of the deadly coronavirus, but heavy-handed policing has already led to tragedy. Africa Eye asks: is the Coronavirus cure far deadlier than the disease?
Coronavirus has been an opportunity for some people; an opportunity to make money selling fake cures for the deadly coronavirus. Africa Eye and Anas Aremayaw Anas go undercover to expose the masterminds of a Covid-19 scam.
There are increasing fears for food security in East Africa with mounting evidence of a new wave of desert locusts. Earlier in the year, billions of the insects destroyed crops across the region – with the UN warning a second generation would be even more destructive. Now, despite international efforts, those fears appear to be coming to pass. When the first wave hit, Albert Lemasulani gave up his life to fight the swarms - leaving his family, his goats, and his newborn son behind to try and prevent a plague.
In Somalia, the official death toll for Covid-19 is very low, but why do Mogadishu's graveyards tell a different story? Africa Eye investigates the reality of coronavirus in Somalia, a country whose healthcare system has been devastated by three decades of conflict.
More than 2,000 medical workers in Ghana have been infected by coronavirus since the outbreak began. The country has faced a severe lack of essential protective equipment like face shields, masks and suits. Our investigation with Anas Aremeyaw Anas shows how some medical workers are profiteering at the expense of their colleagues.
Libya, January 2020. Twenty-six unarmed cadets are killed by an explosion for which no-one has ever claimed responsibility. What hit them? Where did it come from? And which foreign powers are secretly fuelling Libya's war? BBC Africa Eye investigates.
An explosion in Lagos, Nigeria rocked the city to its core. 23 people were killed, and a girls' boarding school totally destroyed. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the country's state-owned oil firm, said the blast in March occurred as a result of a truck that hit gas cylinders near one of its petroleum pipelines. But BBC Africa Eye's investigation indicates this explanation for the cause of the blast, that decimated over 100,000 square metres of the city, is wrong.
A BBC News Arabic investigation has uncovered systemic child abuse inside Islamic schools in Sudan, with boys as young as five years old routinely chained, shackled and beaten by the “sheikhs”, or religious men in charge of the schools. The investigation also found evidence of sexual abuse. For 18 months, reporter, Fateh Al-Rahman Al-Hamdani, filmed inside 23 schools across Sudan. He found boys shackled and chained and witnessed brutal routine beatings.
The best scams always come in disguise. And Crowd1 is the most audacious scam we’ve ever seen. It looks like a high-tech marketing business that’s making a ton of money for people across Africa. All you need is a smartphone and some hustle. But behind the promises and the hype, BBC Africa Eye’s Ayanda Charlie finds some ugly truths, some wealthy scammers, and a whole pyramid of lies.
BBC Africa Eye has uncovered damning evidence of a thriving underground trade in stolen children in Kenya, including shocking undercover footage of children being stolen to order and sold on the streets of Nairobi for as little as $450.
South Africa has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Africa. The backbone of the country’s response were community health workers with a mission to test and identify the infected. Predominately women, these front line workers were tasked with navigating the stark inequalities of South Africa to test those in some of the richest neighbourhoods on the continent and also people living in some of it’s densest townships, where social distancing is impossible. Filmed over six months, BBC Africa Eye follows Tshego, a nurse and mother from the Alexandra Township in Johannesburg, fighting a virus that brought her face to face with stigma, poverty and corruption.
In November 2020, #BBCAfricaEye released an investigation into child trafficking that sent shockwaves throughout Kenya. Many of the children featured in the film were stolen. But others were willingly sold by their own mothers, often for tiny sums. This is the story of one mother and her baby, trapped between poverty and the child traffickers.
Kenya has a real version of the spy James Bond, and her name is Jane. Detective Jane Mugo is the country’s most famous and controversial private investigator. She says she’s solved hundreds of crimes, but some say she writes her own rules. This is the inside story of the woman they call Kenya’s 'Spy Queen.' BBC Africa’s Sharon Machira has been investigating.
Africa Eye investigates an unsolved murder of a sex worker in Sierra Leone and uncovers a world where women who sell sex are often abused, attacked, trafficked, and even killed. In the city of Makeni, a group of sex workers, led by a woman called Lady P, are on a mission to fight for justice and to improve their rights. Although sex work is not illegal in the country, these women are seen as immoral outcasts and receive little support from the government or society. And as Tyson Conteh reports, their survival has been made even more precarious since the coronavirus pandemic.
Prisoners on remand - or 'remandees' - in Zambia often face an uncertain future. William Kondowe has been waiting two years for his trial on charges of car theft and murder and, like many prisoners, he has struggled to maintain his links to life outside the prison walls. A radical new project, set up by Prison counsellor Hastings Siamoongwa, tries to help remandees like William
BBC Africa Eye goes undercover to expose an ineffective and corrupt pension system in Nigeria, which leaves some elderly people sick and penniless, yet grants some politicians outrageous retirement packages. Reporter Yemisi Adegoke travels to Cross River State to meet ‘Ghost Pensioners’ – elderly people whom the state declared dead and deprived of their pensions. Some of whom are forced to rely on financial support from their relatives and are subjected to dehumanising treatment from the state officials for petitioning for their pensions to be reinstated.
Every day, human rights campaigner Ahmed Isah captivates Nigeria, administering his own brand of populist justice on his radio and TV Show 'Brekete Family'. The self-styled ‘Ordinary President’ is celebrated by millions of Nigerians for using his power to deliver justice to the poor and for holding senior politicians and police officials to account before the nation. Reporter Peter Nkanga followed Ahmed and his team over a number of weeks and discovered that, though the Ordinary President has changed many lives for the better, his often controversial methods also raise serious questions.
In November last year, more than 50 people were shot and killed during a government crackdown on the streets of Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Officials defended the use of live fire, saying the police were responding to rioters. But a new investigation by BBC Africa Eye documents a killing spree on Kampala Road, and shows damning evidence that Ugandan security forces, firing from the back of a police truck, shot at least seven unarmed people.
Every year tens of thousands of Ethiopians begin the perilous 2,000 kilometre trek from their home country to Saudi Arabia, attempting to cross mountains, deserts, the Red Sea and even a war zone. Some of these migrants describe how they face robbery, extortion and starvation in temperatures of around 50 degrees. Many die along the way, while others fall short and end up begging on the streets. BBC Africa Eye brings you the story of some of those who risk it all.
Since January 2012, Mali has been facing a violent insurgency in the north of the country. But the soldiers on the front line have been growing bitter accusing their commanders of corruption by sending them to fight with little pay and insufficient equipment. Some are even thinking of changing sides. Their widows and families back home say they have been forgotten by the nation their men died for. #BBCAfricaEye investigates the cycle of death, violence and corruption, and asks: is there no end in sight?
A seven-strong group of homeless street dancers in Nairobi, who call themselves the Street Family Dance Crew are determined to overcome the desperate hardships of street life and make their names as celebrity dancers. Film-maker Nick Wambugu follows them for two years on their quest to find fame and fortune. Their journey is fraught with obstacles as they endure hunger and destitution, bust-ups with police, family troubles, and the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a film about hope and ingenuity, resilience and courage, as the boys find ways to survive and keep dancing - hoping, against all the odds, that they will break through and hit the big time.
Abductions, beheadings, and the burning of homes have become the calling cards of a secretive and brutal group of insurgents in Cabo Delgado, Northern Mozambique.
Kidnappers have seized more than a thousand students and staff from schools in a series of raids across northern Nigeria. The wave of abductions has had devastating consequences for the country, which already has the highest number of children out of education anywhere in the world. Parents face extortionate demands in exchange for the freedom of their sons and daughters, and many families in Africa's most populous nation are now too afraid to send their children to class. Mayeni Jones travels across north western Nigeria to meet those affected and find out what's fuelling Nigeria's kidnap crisis.
Unlocking secrets from Africa's biggest banking data leak, BBC Africa Eye reveals how millions of dollars of public funds ended up in the private bank accounts of businesses based in Democratic Republic of Congo and owned by family and associates of former President Joseph Kabila. How much did the former President know? The investigation is part of Congo Hold-up, an international collaboration with access to evidence from BGFI Bank.
The Black Axe are one of the most feared and powerful organised crime groups in the world. Reporter Peter Macjob is on a journey to meet the Axemen face to face.
When COVID-19 pandemic hit Kenya, cases of gender-based violence exploded. But a combination of fear, stigma and a lack of trust in the police mean the majority of cases are never reported. It has been described as Kenya’s ‘hidden epidemic’. Africa Eye reporter Tom Odula investigates the deep-seated roots behind the violence, discovers the trauma behind the shocking statistics, and explores the police and government inaction that leaves survivors with little hope of justice.
Kush – a cheap, new, illegal drug high is taking the youth of Sierra Leone to a dark place. Young people driven mad. Young people killing themselves. Young people harming themselves and others. Psychiatric wards are filling up with Kush cases and police are battling to win the war against the drug. With Kush use spreading like wildfire, with ever-younger users being exposed to it, Africa Eye reporter, Tyson Conteh, investigates the drug and asks whether Sierra Leone can stop the march of this dangerously addictive high?
Africa Eye exposes dodgy driving licences and dangerous vehicles on Kenya’s killer roads. Have the network of roads which criss-cross Kenya become death traps? Between 2020 and 2021 Kenyan road deaths rose more than 20 per cent. Last year, more than 4,500 were killed and over 16,000 injured. The Kenyan Government says drunk driving, overloading, and speeding are among the top causes of the carnage. But is corruption also a factor? Journalist Richard Chacha, himself paralysed in a road accident ten years ago, joins Africa Eye to expose rogue driving school employees who, for a fee, fix it for rookie drivers to get behind the wheel without ever having to take a driving test. Africa Eye also reveals how brokers take cash to beat the vehicle safety testing system, enabling taxis fit for the scrap heap to be driven on Kenya’s roads… and carry passengers.
For hundreds of millions of Africans, Christianity is the cornerstone of their existence. But an explosion of rogue pastors exploiting the trust and belief of their followers for profit and power has led to a fight for the soul of Christianity in Africa. Africa Eye reporter Peter Macjob travels to Uganda to meet the new religious movements rejecting Christian conventions, the traditional pastors working hard to maintain their flocks, the families who have suffered tragic losses at the hands of rogue pastors, and those who have abandoned religion altogether. With charlatans and conmen preying on the faith of millions, what is the future for believers in Uganda and across Africa?
It’s estimated thousands of Africans were among more than five million refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As they tried to escape the carnage, many Africans were treated like second class citizens. Reports of discrimination at Ukraine’s western borders were widespread with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees acknowledging racist treatment. BBC Africa journalist, Peter Okwoche, was at the Polish border reporting on the African experience days after war broke out. In the weeks which followed he also spoke to many Africans still caught up in the conflict. Did they make it to safety? Africa Eye investigates.
In February 2020 a shocking video began to circulate on Chinese social media. A group of African children are being instructed, by a voice off-camera, to chant phrases in Chinese. The kids repeat the words with smiles and enthusiasm — but they don’t understand that what they’re being told to say is “I am a black monster and my IQ is low.” The clip ignited outrage in China and beyond.
Every day they go to work, they have no idea whether they will return home alive. They are Zama Zamas - men who risk everything to go deep underground in South Africa’s dangerous disused gold mines to scratch a living. Poverty forces them beneath the earth to search for gold. Some will be arrested for illegal mining. Some will die. In “We are Zama Zama”, BBC Africa Eye tells their stories. The events in this film were captured by an independent filmmaker and acquired by the BBC. The film has been re-edited from a longer version.
Impoverished families in Tanzania are being tricked into giving up their disabled children by human traffickers. Promised a better life, the children are instead smuggled into Kenya and forced to beg, often for years. Africa Eye goes undercover to expose the traffickers trading in human misery and helps one young victim escape his captors.
In north western Nigeria ultra-violent bandit gangs raid villages, attack drivers, abduct schoolchildren, and kill anyone who resists. But who are these men, and what do they want? A new documentary from BBC Africa Eye talks us into the heart of Nigeria’s worst security crisis, and brings us face to face with some of the most feared bandit leaders in Zamfara state.
Every year thousands of young Africans set out on the migrant trail, risking all in the hope of a better future. #BBCAfricaEye travels from Nigeria to the shores of Europe, witnessing the multiple challenges young migrants must overcome. What compels so many people to attempt the journey, despite the dangers that lie ahead?
In Kenya, over a third of the population grow up in single parent families. BBC Africa Eye follows the personal journey of reporter Namukabo Werungah, who has never known her father and has decided to search for this missing part of her identity. She has no idea if he is alive or dead, but with her wedding approaching, has decided it’s time to know her history. Armed only with a name and a profession, Namukabo travels across Kenya. She meets others in a similar situation, searches through police records, faces conversations she has always feared to have with her family, and finds revelations along the way. Her emotional journey strikes a chord with millions in Kenya and across the continent. Will she find the man she was meant to call dad? And if she does, will he want her in his life?
Fighting in Ethiopia’s civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, while millions more face hunger and starvation. For almost two years, the Tigray region has been largely isolated and under a state of siege. Millions of Tigrayans are in need of food and lack of supplies have pushed health systems to the brink of collapse. “There is nowhere on earth”, says WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “where the health of millions of people is more under threat than in Tigray”.
In June 2022, shocking videos started circulating online, showing violent clashes between African migrants and Moroccan border guards. They were filmed on a tiny piece of land where Morocco meets Spain - a gateway into Europe - and show the bodies of African migrants being thrown to the ground, beaten and crushed. Twenty-four people died in the incident, and many more are still missing. Africa Eye verified dozens of videos, collected testimonies from survivors and gained exclusive access to the border infrastructure to piece together the most comprehensive investigation into the tragedy and ask - was it preventable?
Three years ago, BBC Africa Eye’s Nancy Kacungira reported on the plight of three young women, Mercy, Scovia and Esther who left their homes to find jobs as domestic workers. Commonly referred to as ‘housegirls’, the film chronicled their hard lives and illustrated how being employed as a domestic worker can sometimes lead to mistreatment and even abuse. Now Nancy is back and catching up with the three young women to find out how their lives have changed and whether their hopes and dreams became reality. From babies to boutiques to back to school, Nancy discovers how each former domestic worker has overcome difficulties and embraced their new lives.
‘What Is Eating My Mind’ is an insightful and deeply personal story of living with bipolar disorder in Kenya, where the issue of mental health is often taboo. Noella Luka was living out her dream of studying filmmaking in the US when a manic episode turned her life upside down. She was hospitalised and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Noella quit film school, returned to Kenya, and picked up a camera. For years, she has kept a record of her battle with bipolar disorder and her search for answers to one burning question: ‘What Is Eating My Mind?’ While filming, she faces her biggest challenge yet, but her story is one of hope. Noella is also working to give a voice to others navigating mental health challenges – including a friend, who was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and received unorthodox treatment within a religious group.
A joint investigation between BBC Africa Eye and Panorama has uncovered widespread sexual abuse on farms which supply some of the UK’s most popular tea brands including PG Tips, Lipton and Sainsbury’s Red Label. Women in Kenya say they’ve been forced into sex by their managers while working on plantations which have been owned for decades by two British companies.
The Seychelles is known as a tropical paradise with a multi-million-dollar tourist industry. But beyond the 5-star hotels and azure beaches is a country in turmoil. Based on population, Seychelles has the biggest heroin problem in the world with around 10% of Seychellois dependent on the drug. Joseph Fady Banane, who’s lived on the islands all his life, was one of them. Now free of heroin, Fady investigates the secret epidemic that lies behind the luxury. Meeting drug users, dealers, police, and the communities caught in the middle, Fady confronts a painful past and tries to reconnect with those he loves… and almost lost.
In the wake of the pandemic, reports emerged from Uganda of a 300% increase in girls aged 10–14 becoming pregnant. Sexual violence has been further fuelled in the north by the traumatic legacy of a 20-year insurgency led by notorious warlord Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Africa Eye investigates the true scale of the problem and the price of justice for many survivors.
This is the story of a country where the path to womanhood can bring pain, trauma, and even death. A country where children can be left motherless because of the ancient traditions of Bondo — a Sierra Leone secret society which cuts out female genitals as part of centuries old rite of passage ceremonies. FGM — female genital mutilation — is woven so deep into the female fabric of Sierra Leone, most women there have had their genitalia cut. No-one really knows how many have died as a result. BBC Africa Eye reporter, Tyson Conteh, believes his girlfriend, Fatmata, bled to death after undergoing FGM in 2016. He investigates whether her death was then covered up to protect Bondo. It is a journey driven by Fatmata, who, says Tyson, spoke to him in his dreams demanding justice.
When Nigeria passed some of the toughest anti-homosexuality laws in Africa, the internet became a place for the LGBT community to connect with others more safely — until criminal gangs went digital too. Africa Eye investigates how members of the LGBT community in Nigeria are targeted by criminal gangs who pose as potential dates on popular apps, only to extort, beat and even kidnap them. This crime is so prevalent it even has a name: Kito. Africa Eye speaks to dozens of victims who have been "kito’d", and meets the activists, and even law enforcement officers, who are using the very tactics of the blackmailers to fight them back.
At just six months of age, Lea Kilenga Bey was diagnosed with sickle cell. Her parents were told by doctors that she wouldn’t reach her teenage years. Instead, Lea has become a beacon of hope for sickle cell sufferers across Africa, battling both the stigmas surrounding the disease and the authorities who fail to provide adequate care.
Could anti-slavery efforts in Ghana be doing more harm than good to local communities? BBC Africa Eye goes undercover to investigate one of the world’s leading anti-slavery organisations and their West African operations. On 6 September 2022, in northern Ghana, four children were taken, at gunpoint, from their home in the middle of the night. They were brought to a hotel, photographed, washed and fed. At sunrise, they were relocated to a shelter. Their families were left in the dark as to where and why. For the American charity coordinating the raid, it was a successful mission to rescue child slaves. For the families, it felt like a kidnapping leaving them bewildered and traumatised. What really happened to these children? With a trail of WhatsApp messages, secret filming, and a journey to some of the remotest areas of Ghana, Africa Eye brings you the story of what happens when good intentions go horribly wrong.
Across Africa, the elderly have traditionally been cared for by their families. Now, with life expectancy increasing by ten years in the last two decades, many Africans are turning to care homes for help. But are elderly relatives getting the care they need? Undercover reporters gathered evidence of mistreatment and neglect of vulnerable residents at an elderly care home near Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Secret filming shows staff members physically mistreating residents and dumping unplated food on tables, leaving struggling residents to feed themselves. Medical conditions were also left untreated. Africa Eye reporter Njeri Mwangi investigates the dark side of elderly care in Kenya.
In Morocco and Sudan more than 80 women said they had been raped, assaulted or manipulated into having sex. It is the first time an investigation of this kind has been conducted into the abuse surrounding this unregulated practice
A network of anti-migrant groups is emerging across South Africa, spreading anti-migrant rhetoric and even attacking migrant communities. The groups blame illegal migrants for the state of the country’s economy, lack of housing and an explosion of drug abuse. But their critics accuse them of being violent vigilantes, who target some of the country’s most vulnerable people. #BBCAfricaEye reporter Ayanda Charlie gains rare access to Operation Dudula, South Africa’s most notorious anti-migrant group. Dudula say they are standing up for ordinary South Africans who have been let down by the government and deny allegations that they are a vigilante group who preach a doctrine of violence. As she takes to the street with Dudula members, Charlie not only hears xenophobic rhetoric but also witnesses small business owners from neighbouring countries being physically threatened, forced to hand over their business, and hears how Dudula intend to establish a political party to contest South Afric
In Gabon, it’s the dream of most young footballers to play internationally. But in 2022, a long serving coach for youth national teams admitted to charges of raping, grooming, and exploiting young players. He faces up to 30 years in prison. Africa Eye’s Khadidiatou Cissé travels to Gabon to investigate one of the biggest sexual abuse scandals in the history of football. She speaks with victims and eyewitnesses who reveal a shocking culture of sexual abuse that has plagued all levels of Gabonese football for three decades - with claims that many people knew, and many stayed silent. We follow a coach who, at personal risk, is determined to bring about change. FIFA are facing accusations of failing to take effective action over the sexual abuse scandal.
In 2020, #BBCAfricaEye exposed a network of child traffickers who preyed upon some of Kenya’s most vulnerable women. The traffickers ranged from homeless drug addicts to organised criminals and even corrupt medical staff. At the time, our undercover investigators managed to infiltrate underground rings selling stolen children for as little as 400 USD. After the broadcast of the ‘The Baby Stealers’, officials made public promises of firm government action and some of those involved in the underground trade were arrested. Three years on, Africa Eye reporter Njeri Mwangi revisits some of Nairobi’s poorest neighbourhoods to find out how much impact the film had in the fight against child trafficking in Kenya. Has justice been served? And how much have things really changed since?
In Kenya, corporal punishment in schools has been banned for over twenty years, yet young students are being beaten by their teachers on a daily basis, and the consequences can be fatal. In the last five years alone, it’s believed more than 20 children have died at the hands of their teachers. In this hard-hitting investigation, #BBCAfricaEye’s Tom Odula, whose own school years were marked by brutal and degrading treatment at the hand of teachers, goes on a journey to investigate the extent of the problem and what can be done to address it. He speaks to young victims who bear the scars of vicious beatings. To families who are seeking justice for their children who have reportedly been beaten, one of who died. And to teachers who have turned their back on the cane and are now trying to spread the message that violence in the classroom is wrong. Through all of this, Tom asks the question, why is this happening, and what is being done to protect the most innocent
Across the world, debates are raging about access to safe abortion. Complications from unsafe, backstreet procedures are a leading cause of maternal death in developing countries. In Kenya, where almost two-thirds of pregnancies are unintended, unregulated terminations are estimated to claim the lives of over 2,000 women every year. BBC Africa Eye reporter Linda Ngari investigates a hidden crisis that has led to an estimated seven Kenyan women dying from unsafe abortions every day, with many more facing life-altering complications.
Two young women in Britain watch a VHS tape that will change the course of their lives forever: a Nigerian preacher can apparently heal the sick, cure cancer and AIDS. They decide to visit his church in Lagos to meet him. Joshua invites the teenagers to become his disciples, joining dozens of other young people who live on the church premises and do his every bidding. But life as a disciple isn’t what they imagined.
Nigerian superpastor TB Joshua explodes onto the global stage with Emmanuel TV, one of the world’s most subscribed Christian channels. Behind closed doors in his church in Lagos, life is hard for his teenage ‘disciples’; they have dedicated their life to him and must obey his every command. His own daughter confronts him about alleged abuse and violence and pays a heavy price. A two-year investigation by BBC Africa Eye has revealed serious evidence of widespread violence and abuse.
TB Joshua’s miracles have gained him global recognition, and hundreds of foreigners visit his church in Lagos every week, seeking healing. But when TB Joshua’s church guesthouse collapses, killing 116, people start to ask questions. This episode reveals the unheard story of that devastating day, told by first-hand witnesses inside the compound. And as his disciples try to escape his church, TB Joshua does all that he can to ensure his darkest secrets stay hidden.
Since being elected in 2018, Freetown mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr has won international plaudits for her commitment to fighting the myriad challenges facing the capital of Sierra Leone, one of Africa’s poorest countries. But during her bid for re-election for a second term, she finds herself on the front line of a democratic crisis. As election season ramps up, her campaign faces intimidation, violence and international concerns over the integrity of the election process. Mayor on the Front Line follows Aki-Sawyerr as she confronts the hard realities of politics in a country still scarred by the horrors of a bloody civil war.
BBC Africa Eye investigates the plight of Malawian women lured to Oman with offers of domestic work, only to be trapped in a cycle of exploitation, with little hope of escape. Through WhatsApp voice notes, videos, and texts, this documentary reveals their abusive ordeals, and exposes the tactics of agents that traffic and then abandon them. The investigation also examines the poverty and desperation that leads young people to seek opportunities in the Middle East, and the weak justice system that often allows their employers to abuse them with impunity. Intimate testimonies reveal widespread accounts of sexual and physical abuse, or worse, of African workers - and the film follows the work of an extraordinary network of women working across three continents fighting to bring them home, often against impossible odds.
In 2019, after reported cases of #GBV doubled, Sierra Leone’s president declared a national state of emergency, including the creation of police units dedicated to tackling the problem, and life sentences for those convicted of violating a child. Five years on, #BBCAfricaEye reporter Tyson Conteh travels across Sierra Leone to find out whether the government has delivered on its promises. Through unprecedented access to law enforcement, the judicial system, the penal service, and survivors, Tyson Conteh’s investigation asks why, five years after the promise of firm government action, the women of Sierra Leone still face worrying levels of violence.
South Africa’s murder rate is now at a twenty-year high – one of the highest in the world. There were more than twenty-seven thousand murders last year. With trust in the police falling, Ayanda Charlie meets the frontline communities who are fighting back.
As Kenya’s cost of living rises, so too does violent crime. Reporter Elijah Kanyi investigates the human impact of illegal firearms in Kenya’s slums and meets violent criminals who reveal how easy it is to get hold of guns and how hard it is to walk away from a life of crime. He also meets criminal-turned-campaigner King Kafu as he tries to convince young men that it is safe to hand in their weapons to a police force with a reputation for extrajudicial killings.
For over a year, a forgotten war has been raging in #Sudan. Thousands of civilians have lost their lives and millions more have had to flee their homes. Hospitals and places of worship have been bombed, while makeshift cemeteries are dug on waste ground to bury civilians caught in the crossfire. BBC reporter Feras Kilani, detained by government forces before the conflict, returns to witness the destruction, and possible war crimes, being carried out in a war the world forgot.
In the Central African Republic, one of Africa’s poorest countries, local sand diver Thomas Boa and Chinese construction manager Jianmin Luan struggle to improve their fortunes. They “eat bitter” today in the hope of a better tomorrow, but with no guarantees of what their futures may hold.
At least one elderly person loses their life every week in the name of witchcraft along Kenya’s stunning Kilifi coast. Violent attacks on supposed witches occur across swathes of Africa and beyond, but the estimated 70 deaths reported here every year are about much more than fear of the supernatural. Meeting victims, relatives and even perpetrators, #BBCAfricaEye investigates the real motives fuelling these brutal incidents and the impunity that often enables them, revealing that many elderly victims are targeted not by strangers, but the very people who should be protecting them - their own families.
In the late 1980s, private security guard Louis van Schoor fatally shot dozens people in the South African city of East London. All of his victims were black. The youngest was just 12 years old. It is a bloodbath that places Van Schoor among the most prolific killers in history. He was caught and arrested in 1991. But with many of his shootings signed off by local police as ‘justifiable homicides,’ he would receive a shockingly light sentence - serving only 12 years in jail. Decades have past, but the relatives of his victims have never found closure. How many people did Van Schoor really kill? And who else was involved? It's been thirty years since the white supremacist apartheid regime crumbled. The unresolved trauma of this time has cast a long shadow across a nation. In piecing together the story of Van Schoor, this #BBCAfricaEye investigation exposes the disturbed past and racial injustices of South Africa itself.
In the hope of raising awareness of their collective situation, he was given unprecedented access to a world of danger, drug addiction and even death. Activists estimate that there are more than 20,000 women engaged in sex work in Sierra Leone - a situation fuelled by high unemployment, a crippling cost-of-living crisis, and the lingering trauma of the country’s ten-year civil war. Over the course of four years, Tyson documented the perils sex workers are forced to navigate daily, from extreme violence and disease to the crippling effects of ‘kush’ - a powerful street drug that has wreaked havoc among the youth of Sierra Leone. Worse still is the threat from human traffickers, who have lured countless women into sexual slavery abroad, either by force or with false promises of better jobs.
Award-winning Cape Verdean rapper Ga DaLomba investigates ‘Highway 10’. This drug trafficking route is named after the 10th parallel North, the circle of latitude which charts the shortest sea-faring route across the Atlantic from South America to Africa. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, at least fifty tonnes of cocaine crosses West Africa every year with most arriving via Highway 10, but around 30% of the drugs are sold during transit. As a result, Cape Verde has become known as a ‘motorway service station’ for traffickers, with Europe’s 11 billion dollar cocaine market often the final destination. Ga DaLomba, himself a recovering cocaine addict, meets dealers and law enforcement officers in Cape Verde who have all witnessed a massive influx of cocaine, with the number of addicts also increasing. Ga then searches for an alleged drug trafficker, a British man known as ‘Fox’, who Brazilian police believe used ‘Highway 10’ to transport one tonne of cocai
Father-of-two Mouhamed has never been to sea, but he is about to take what is fast becoming the deadliest migrant journey in the world: the Atlantic crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands. Facing days, even weeks, on the open ocean, this year more than 70,000 irregular migrants and refugees are expected to attempt this perilous journey, many of them in overcrowded wooden boats. From Senegal, Mouhamed will have to survive the treacherous crossing with little more than a handful of biscuits and a few bottles of water, all to achieve his dream of making it to the southern border of Europe. For all those who make it to the Canaries, there will be thousands who die trying. It’s a tragedy unfolding in real time, buried under world headlines. In this hard-hitting investigation, #BBCAfricaEye reporter Mame Cheikh Mbaye takes viewers into the secretive world of migrants hoping to escape conflict and extreme poverty in Senegal and neighbouring countries, and what they hope will
#BBCAfricaEye's The Homecoming explores this 'reverse migration', following their journeys to Senegal - the opposite route their parents made decades earlier. Whilst capturing the challenges they face in building a new life away from what they know, this film explores themes of belonging, identity, and the evolving relationship between Africa and its diaspora, offering a fresh perspective on migration and cross-cultural ties.
