Africa Eye

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.

Some of the camp's residents have fled fighting, others escaped here after unprecedented floods began in 2019. At the worst point, two thirds of the state was underwater - forcing people to forage for food like water lily roots to supplement UN rations. Now, the BBC has been shown evidence that the flood water may harbour yet another threat to the region's vulnerable inhabitants - pollution from the country's oil industry.

Women with fertility issues in Nigeria are being tricked into parting with hundreds of dollars, duped into believing they’re pregnant, and delivering babies that are often trafficked. Africa Eye's undercover investigation exposes one of these scammers, who guarantees results but says delivery won’t happen without payment for an expensive ‘drug’. This documentary investigates how these scammers pray on women so desperate for a baby that they believe or choose to ignore the reality that is obvious to most. We speak to those who have fallen for this scam and expose the link to baby trafficking. Yemisi Adegoke reports on the crippling stigma of infertility in Nigeria and uncovers the criminal networks who profit from it.

In Bangui, Rodrigue and Reine are a couple jointly committed to the activities of their church. But they live with a heavy secret: they are sick with AIDS and carry it as divine punishment. Rodrigue is faced with a life-changing decision when offered the role of assistant pastor at his church. Struggling with self-doubt and questioning his worthiness to lead, he finds himself caught between his devotion to his faith and a dependence on his wife's livelihood. As the pandemic worsens, ARV drugs in short supply and a dangerous rumour is spreading that HIV-positive individuals will not survive taking the Covid-19 vaccine. Rodrigue and Reine's faith is pushed to its limits. In desperation, Reine believes that a miracle could save her husband. Driven by hope, she embarks on a powerful journey - taking Rodrigue from church to pilgrimage, from prayers of repentance to spiritual fasts - all in search of divine healing. This film explores the intersection of faith, love, sacrifice, and the