Africa Eye

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.