From civil war to the pandemic, 2020 was a deadly year for the Syrian province of Idlib. As doctors, Mohammed al-Sharif and Zeina Hallak were on the frontline of the humanitarian crisis, but as parents, they had to protect a growing family from the dual threat of war and disease. For nine months, BBC Our World followed the couple as coronavirus brought them face-to-face with life and death.

Syria: A Family's Fight against the Virus

Kenya’s Spy Queen

New Orleans: The Year the Music Stopped

Our World tells the extraordinary story of the holidaymakers who found themselves trapped by an almighty wildfire at Mammoth Pools in California's Sierra National Forest.

California Burning

New Orleans was getting ready to celebrate Mardi Gras. But among the crowds was a virus that before long would stop the music and kill thousands in the state of Louisiana.

Jane Mugo is Kenya’s most famous – and controversial – private investigator. She says she’s solved hundreds of crimes, but some accuse her of playing by her own rules. Reporter Sharon Machira meets the woman they call Kenya’s Spy Queen.

Human rights activist Azimjan Askarov was imprisoned in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 for a crime he says he did not commit. Ever since then, his wife Hadicha has campaigned tirelessly for his release.

Last Chance for Justice

Over the last few years, Moroccan migrants who are trying to reach the EU have become YouTube celebrities by blogging about the journey online. Our World travels to meet them.

Morocco's YouTube Migrants

The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest and one of the most biodiverse places on earth. But now chunks of it are being sold off – on social media. Joao Fellet reports.

Selling the Amazon

BBC Europe Editor Katya Adler explores what went wrong at the Austrian resort of Ischgl at the start of the global pandemic and asks what lessons can be learned.

Ischgl: The Superspreader Ski Resort

In January this year, something very strange happened on the US stock market. The shares of GameStop, an unfashionable high street games store, suddenly went through the roof and kept rising. As a result, a group of hedge funds unexpectedly found themselves losing millions of dollars.

The giant price spike turned out to be the work of a committed band of amateur online investors – many of whom were out to get their revenge on the titans of Wall Street for the financial crash. Mayhem on the markets ensued. So was this a David versus Goliath clash as many claim? And if so, who really won?

James Clayton meets the investors who made a fortune trading from their bedrooms, the tech supremos who were watching on astonished and the hedge fund giants who are now nursing their losses.

GameStop to the Moon and Back

In late 2020, a conflict that had lain almost dormant for more than 25 years flared up again. Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, with Azerbaijan ultimately reclaiming much of the land they had lost in the conflict of the 1990s. More than 6000 people were killed, and thousands more were driven from their homes.

So who really won? And what now for those whose lives were turned upside down during 44 days of fighting? With rare access inside Nagorno Karabakh, Jonah Fisher travels to both Azerbaijan and Armenia. He meets those who won their homes back and those who lost their loved ones – and discovers that a much bigger power is making a comeback.

Who Won the Karabakh War?

Jimmy Lai is a billionaire newspaper proprietor and a self-proclaimed natural born rebel. He owns Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s last opposition newspaper, and he is an outspoken critic of Beijing. As China tightens its grip on Hong Kong, that puts him in danger. In August he was arrested under the strict new national security law. Yet refusing to being intimidated, he continues to speak out. With remarkable access to Jimmy Lai, the BBC’s Danny Vincent meets the man facing possible life in prison after being charged with violating Hong Kong’s new law.

Hong Kong Jimmy Lai's Last Stand

Under cover of Covid, the Amazon rainforest is under attack. Deforestation is at levels not seen for more than a decade. Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, talks of opening up the forest to development while the environmental police is under attack from loggers. Our World has obtained a recording of the Environment minister talking about using the cover of Covid to “change all the rules” in the Amazon. For Our World, Justin Rowlatt, is on a mission to find out how a tribe he visited a decade ago is faring the face of this assault.

Anarchy in the Amazon

More than 700 people have been killed by the Myanmar military since they seized power at the beginning of February. Our World follows a brother and sister now fighting for their future

Myanmar: The Spring Revolution

Reporter Yemisi Adegoke meets the retired Nigerians struggling to survive due to a corrupt and inefficienct pensions system.

Nigeria's Retirement Hell

Afghanistan is in the grip of a new and sinister campaign of violence, in which young professionals - often women - are being deliberately singled out, targeted and murdered.

Killing Hope: Targeted Attacks in Afghanistan

Six years ago, Amsha escaped from captivity in northern Iraq. Like many Yazidi women, she had been held by IS militants. Today, she is risking her life to clear her homeland of unexploded mines. Our World follows her as she sets out to tackle the deadly legacy her captors left behind.

Yazidi Women: Clearing Sinjar’s Mines

In 2019-20, Australia suffered its most intense bushfire season on record. Millions of hectares of land burned and up to three billion animals were killed or displaced. Eighteen months on, Nick Lazaredes travels to some of the areas hardest hit to discover how the wildlife is faring now, and to meet the experts who are still assessing the scale of the damage.

Australia's Wildfire After the Fires

How did one London street make it through the last year? Filmed from the start of the first lockdown, this intimate portrait shows how the residents coped with the pandemic.

Lockdown in London

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 devastating consequences.

Nigeria's Kidnapped Children

In March this year, Islamist militants attacked the busy town of Palma in the northern tip of Mozambique. In the hours and days that followed, chaos and bloodshed ensued. Many Mozambicans and overseas contractors tried to flee on foot and by boat, while others sought refuge in a hotel compound, awaiting rescue. With compelling eyewitness testimony and mobile phone footage, Catherine Byaruhanga tells the extraordinary stories of those caught up in the attack who were left fighting for survival as the insurgents closed in.

Mozambique: Escape from Palma

Howard Johnson sails to Scarborough Shoal, a large coral reef 120 nautical miles off the coast of the Philippines, to discover how far China is prepared to go to assert its power.

The Battle for the South China Sea

James Clayton travels to Kansas to discover how cutting edge science has identified a woman who was killed 30 years ago and is helping law enforcement in their hunt for the killer.

Finding Grace

Afghanistan is at a critical juncture in its history. As American and allied forces withdraw, the country is now at risk of falling to the Taliban. In episode one of this two-part series, Yalda Hakim returns to the country of her birth to meet people who have benefitted from the last twenty years and spends time with Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who says he would rather die than surrender to the Taliban. What does the future hold for the Afghan people?

Return of the Taliban - Part One

In the second part of this two-part series, Yalda Hakim travels to the country of her birth, Afghanistan, where she gets unprecedented access to the Taliban. She meets with a frontline commander from Helmand Province as well as the Taliban leadership in Doha, learning about their plans for ruling the country after the Americans leave. They claim they have changed and want to work with the Government, but who are the Taliban in 2021, and are they planning a return to the brutal regime of the 90s?

Return of the Taliban - Part Two

This autumn Angela Merkel bows out after 16 years as German Chancellor. In that time she has been a key player on the world stage, but how has she changed her own country?

Merkel's Germany

Nine-year-old Rodwell Nkomazana was attacked by a hyena earlier this year while sleeping outside his church in Zimbabwe. He suffered life-threatening injuries. Now, a team of volunteer doctors in South Africa is battling to help Rodwell by rebuilding his face. Our World follows their groundbreaking work and Rodwell's remarkable recovery.

Building My New Face

Over 17000 migrants have arrived in the UK this year by crossing the English Channel in small boats - that is more than double last year's total. Both the UK and French authorities are talking tough, but the numbers keep rising. So why do two of the richest nations in the world find it so hard to control who crosses such a busy shipping lane? Lucy Williamson goes on patrol with the police tasked with turning the tide - and meets the migrants who are determined to outwit them.

The Battle for the Channel

Not for the first time in its troubled history, Lebanon finds itself facing a crisis. A collapsing currency, severe shortages of basic goods, and a fragmented political system have all led the Lebanese people down a dark and uncertain path. Nowhere are the day-to-day consequences of these challenges felt more acutely than in the nation's hospitals. Our World follows the director of Lebanon's largest public hospital as he tries to stave off disaster and a junior doctor forced to decide between her patients and her own future.

Lebanon on Life Support

A company believes it can help tackle America's growing gun crime problem by alerting police the moment shots are fired. Its technology, however, has become increasingly controversial.

Shots Fired?

This summer, Greece was ravaged by thousands of wildfires, fanned by the country's worst heatwave in decades. Hardest hit was Greece's second largest island, Evia. The Greek government blamed climate change for the blazes, which destroyed huge swathes of forest. Bethany Bell, who reported on the fires in August, returns to Evia to see how people are dealing with the consequences of the catastrophe.

Greece's Megafires

On 1 September 2021, New York City was hit by hurricane Ida. In the devastating flooding which followed 13 people died, the majority of them trapped in basement homes. With compelling eyewitness accounts and previously-unseen footage, Our World tells the story of what happened that night, and asks what it means for New York City's future as climate change makes extreme weather events more likely.

Flooded: One Night in New York City

In May this year, the unmarked graves of 215 children were found on the grounds of an old Indian residential school in Canada. More grave sites have been discovered across the country. It is thought more than 100,000 indigenous children suffered abuse in the government and church-run schools. With powerful interviews from survivors and lawyers trying to identify the missing children, Our World follows the story to discover who should be held accountable for the decades of institutional abuse.

Canada's Missing Children

As Barbados removes the Queen as its head of state and becomes the world's newest republic, British-Barbadian Daniel Henry returns to his ancestral home to determine what islanders make of the move. From the man in charge of rebuilding parliament to England's first black cricketer, Roland Butcher, Daniel asks - why now? And does what it mean for the island's future?

Barbados: Road to a Republic

Current affairs documentary reporting on issues around the world.

Syria: A Family's Fight against the Virus

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Season 15 Episodes33

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