Crossing Continents Folgen

'I'll marry your sister if you marry mine. And if you divorce my sister, I'll divorce yours.' That is Yemen's 'Shegar', or swap marriage, an agreement between two men to marry each other's sisters, thereby removing the need for expensive dowry payments. But the agreement also states that if one marriage fails, the other couple must separate, too, even if they are happy. BBC Arabic's Mai Noman returns to her native Yemen and hears the stories of two women who have loved and lost because of Shegar. Nadia lives in the village of Sawan on the outskirts of the capital Sana'a with her family. She was married off at the age of twenty two and has three children. But because of her family's decision to marry her in the Shegar tradition she was forced to divorce when the other couple's marriage failed. Now she and her mother have to live with the stigma attached to divorce, and she only has limited access to her children, who remain with her ex-husband's family. Nora and her brother Waleed had little say in marrying their cousins through Shegar. But when one marriage failed, hard choices had to be made by everyone. Mai asks why an old tradition that forces you to love only to force you to part, is still practised in Yemen.Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Gabriel Gatehouse reports from the Liberian capital Monrovia on the devastating impact of Ebola upon its people. In one case, a patient called Annie, 38, was discovered in her crowded shared house in harrowing conditions. She was taken away to hospital but disappeared into the system. Gabriel and his team go in search of Annie and along the way meet the medics and families on the front line of the Ebola crisis.

Mobeen Azhar reports from Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, where police are at war with the Taliban. Given rare access to the work of the police by a Senior Superintendent in Karachi's Criminal Investigation Department, Mobeen joins officers on a night time raid in search of the men who train suicide bombers. He meets a suspect in custody who brags about planting bombs and describes how he urges teenage boys to sacrifice their lives in violent jihad. Mobeen also talks to a businessman who was kidnapped for ransom and meets the families of police officers who have been killed by the militants. Assassinations linked to political parties have blighted the city for over a decade but today, more than 70 groups representing the militant Taliban are also fighting for control. This guerrilla war, once confined to the tribal belt of Waziristan has moved into Karachi with devastating results.