Crossing Continents BBC Radio 4

Thousands of people every day are on the move across Mexico towards the border with the US. But for migrants, this is one of the most perilous journeys in the world: land routes are dominated by powerful drug cartels and organised crime groups.
In this episode of Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly hears terrifying stories of kidnap and extortion from those who have risked everything to enter the United States.
The US/Mexico border has become the most important battleground for Americans in this year’s presidential election, but it seems no one can stop the men with guns who operate with impunity south of the border in Mexico.
Producer/presenter: Linda Pressly
Producer: Tim Mansel
Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla
Sound: Neil Churchill
Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Penny Murphy

Belarus has huge numbers of political prisoners - around three times as many as in Russia, in a far smaller country.
Almost industrial scale arrests began after huge, peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations swept the country in 2020 after Alexander Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in presidential elections. Mr Lukashenko has been in power for 30 years. Protestors said the result was a fraud, and that they’d been cheated of their vote.
Almost four years on, the authorities are still making mass arrests.
Many of those detained are women. The most prominent woman prisoner, Maria Kolesnikova, a professional flute player, has been incommunicado for over a year, with no word at all reaching her family or lawyers.
Political prisoners are made to wear a yellow patch on their clothes. The women say they kept short of food and made to sew uniforms for the security forces, to clean the prison yard with rags and shovel snow. They speak of undergoing humiliating punishments such as standing in parade grounds under the sun for hours.
Yet they also tell us of camaraderie and warmth in their tiny cells as they try to keep one other going. And women on the outside continue to take personal risks to help the prisoners by sending in food, warm clothes and letters.
Presented by Monica Whitlock
Producers Monica Whitlock and Albina Kovalyova
Sound mix Neil Churchill
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Penny Murphy

While recent attention has focused on the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen, BBC correspondent Nawal Al-Maghafi investigates a different, hidden aspect of the country’s long civil war.
The conflict in Yemen began in 2014. It has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In 2015, a coalition formed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen. Its stated aim was to return the elected government to power, and to fight terrorism.
However, Nawal Al-Maghafi , from BBC Arabic Investigations has found evidence that the UAE has been funding a method of covert warfare in southern Yemen – assassinating those who have spoken out against the UAE’s operations in the country. Assassinations were initially carried out by a band of former American Special Forces operatives turned mercenaries, who were paid by the UAE. These extra-judicial killings, conducted in the name of counterterrorism, continue to this day. The UAE denies the allegations.
Reporter: Nawal Al-Maghafi
Producer: Alex Last
Sound mix: Rod Farquhar
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman
Executive Producer for BBC News Arabic: Monica Gansey

Migration is high on the political agenda in countries across Europe, as the number of asylum seekers rises once more. As well as those who risk life and limb on flimsy boats in the Mediterranean, thousands more come via the Balkans, many of them through Turkey and across the border into Bulgaria. They don’t stay there long. Their preferred destinations are further west, Germany perhaps or Britain. And while the migrants’ stories have become well-known in recent years, we hear relatively little from the people who enable their journeys, the people smugglers.
For Crossing Continents, Nick Thorpe has been to the north-west of Bulgaria, where it meets Serbia to the west and Romania across the Danube to the north. There he meets two men who worked as drivers for a smuggling organisation, shuttling migrants from Sofia, the capital, to the border.
Presented by Nick Thorpe
Produced by Tim Mansel

Campaigners on the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda are locked in a battle over its development by foreign investors who are building exclusive resorts for wealthy clients. The development of Barbuda into a high-end tourist destination is supported by the government of Antigua and Barbuda, who say it’s essential to create jobs and for the economic future of the island. But others argue that it will fundamentally change the island’s ecology and unique way of life. Caroline Bayley travels to Barbuda for Crossing Continents to speak to both sides in the heated debate over the island’s future.
Photo: The pristine coastline on Barbuda's south coast, which has become the main focus for new luxury developments (BBC).
Reporter: Caroline Bayley
Producer: Alex Last
Sound mix by Rod Farquhar
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Series Editor: Penny Murphy

In 2016, the Philippines’ newly elected president, Rodrigo Duterte declared there was one, common enemy: the drugs trade. What followed was a bloodbath. Addicts, alleged traffickers – and so many who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – were gunned down in the streets by the security services. Often, the police claimed there had been a shoot-out and they had shot back in self-defence. The government put the number of people killed in the ‘war on drugs’ at 6,252 – that figure doesn’t include the thousands killed by unknown assailants.

Now some of those victims are speaking from beyond the grave. Many were poor, and their families couldn’t afford a permanent resting place in a cemetery. Instead, they rented a burial spot. And, as those short leases have come up for eviction, a Catholic priest, Father Flavie Villanueva, offers families help to exhume and cremate the bodies. But before cremation, the remains are examined by one of only two forensic pathologists in the Philippines, Dr Raquel Fortun.

Dr Fortun has assessed the skeletal remains of dozens of victims of the ‘war on drugs’. Her findings often contradict police narratives. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly reports on these efforts to uncover the truth of what happened under President Duterte. But she also hears how, under a new president since 2022 - Ferdinand Marcos Jr - the killings on the streets have continued.

Producer: Tim Mansel
Presenter: Linda Pressly
Studio mix by James Beard
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Penny Murphy