Crossing Continents

A fuzzy team photo from the 1980s sends Tim Whewell on a journey to track down football players from a small town in northern Syria who were once the champions of Aleppo province. In the last four years of war their hometown, Mare'a, has become a war zone - bombed by the Assad regime, besieged by Islamic State, subject even to a mustard gas attack. And the civil war has torn through what was once a band of friends - some now pro-rebel, some pro-regime. They're scattered across Syria and beyond, some fighting near Mare'a, some in refugee camps abroad. What have they gone through since they won that cup? And do they think they can ever be reunited? Shabnam Grewal producing.

India's Parsis are one of the subcontinent's most successful communities. But their future looks precarious because their numbers have fallen dramatically. Some Parsis believe the answer could be to accept converts, and re-write the rules on who's deemed a Parsi. Others are resistant to change. Now the Indian government has stepped in to fund fertility treatment for couples who dream of parenthood. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to Mumbai to meet them.

The Cambodian government has recently announced a clampdown on unlicensed doctors. This comes after a mass infection of HIV in a rural village, blamed on an unlicensed doctor re-using syringes. The "doctor", recently convicted of manslaughter, has just begun a 25 year prison sentence.For millions of people, self-taught, unlicensed doctors are often their cheapest - and only - option if they fall ill. Cambodia has one of the world's lowest numbers of doctors per head of population, on a par with Afghanistan. For Crossing Continents, John Murphy travels outside the capital Phnom Penh to see whether the government clampdown is having an effect. He finds evidence that self-taught doctors are still operating in villages, without hindrance - and with plenty of local support. Producer Helen Grady.

The deaths of five school children in Malaysia have provoked an anguished debate about education and what it means to be Malay. The children ran away from their boarding school in Kelantan State and died of starvation in the jungle. They were afraid of harsh punishment from their teachers. Two girls survived eating grass and wild fruits but were found emaciated and close to death 47 days later. The children came from the Orang Asli community, one of the poorest and most marginalised in the country. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Ash travels to the remote region where the children came from and talks to their bereaved parents. Many families are now refusing to send their children to school and campaigners accuse the government of not doing enough to protect rights of the Orang Asli community. Jane Beresford producing.

Maria Margaronis explores the debris of Albania's painful past-the prison labour camps, concrete bunkers and secret police headquarters--as archives are unlocked and new monuments put up in an effort to redefine who Albanians are. The country's citizens are trying to come to terms with history and move on from Enver Hoxha's dictatorial regime, the pyramid schemes and the political and economic collapse that followed. Instead of moving on, though, many are moving out of the country altogether. Do their leaders' efforts represent real change, or are they just an attempt to plaster over the cracks and reinforce Albania's plan to enter the EU?

They say you can't take it with you but if you live in Greece how much money you have at the end of your life makes a big difference. Permanent plots in the country's packed cemeteries can cost as much as a small flat so most graves are rented for a three year period and once that time is up the dead are exhumed and their bones collapsed into a small box to be kept at the cemetery. Those relatives who can't afford the cost of the exhumation or the storage charge for the box of bones will have their loved one's remains thrown in a so called 'digestion' pit with countless others' where they are dissolved with chemicals. In the current economic climate and with continued capital controls, Greeks are struggling to pay for the burial costs and unclaimed bodies are piling up at mortuaries. But there are few cost effective alternatives because Greece happens to be one of the few EU countries without a crematorium - each time plans have been made to build one it has been blocked by the Greek Orthodox Church. Instead Greeks are forced to send their relatives' bodies to Bulgaria for cremation. For Crossing Continents, Chloe Hadjimatheou reports on the business of dying in Greece.Producer: David Edmonds.

Peru is the world's largest producer of cocaine. A staggering one-third of it travels on foot, on the backs of young men like Daniel. He is 18, full of bravado, and claims he does this work so he will be able to go to university and take care of his family. Daniel is one of thousands known as 'mochileros' - backpackers, in Spanish - who hike their illicit cargo from the tropical valley where most of Peru's coca is produced, up to Andean towns, out towards the border with Brazil, and to clandestine airstrips.For Crossing Continents Linda Pressly meets the 'mochileros' who are mostly young men from isolated, peasant villages. They have grown up in coca-growing communities that suffered some of the worst atrocities of Peru's dirty war with Shining Path rebels in the 1990s. All of them do it for the money - payments of hundreds of dollars in a region where the incidence of poverty is more than twice the national average.It is a perilous occupation. Armed gangs, a re-emerging Shining Path, the military and police all conspire to stop or control the trade. Daniel says that on every trip he makes, three or four young men will die. Highland prisons are bursting with mochileros who were caught, but in many ways they are the lucky ones - others die on the trails, their bodies devoured by wild animals.The Drug Mules of the Andes tells the story of the 'mochileros', their families and the Peruvian authorities charged with interdiction.

In Norway, the sacking of a newspaper editor, allegedly after pressure from Russia, has caused a political storm over media freedom, and raised questions over what price the country should pay for good relations with its powerful eastern neighbour. Thomas Nilsen is a veteran environmental activist who edited a paper in the far north of Norway, in a region which has enjoyed a unique cross-border relationship with Russia. Now that's threatened by rising tension between Russia and NATO. And relations have been further strained by the flow of refugees, now coming through Russia into the far north of Norway. Tim Whewell reports on what it means for the Norwegian outpost of Kirkenes, where Norwegians and Russians work closely together in the oil and fishing business and where cooperation and friendship go back decades.

In April, the case of a 10 year old girl who became pregnant after her step-father raped her became front-page news in Paraguay, and across Latin America. Abortion is legal in this small South American nation only if the mother's life is deemed to be in danger. In this case, the authorities ruled there was no threat to the girl, and the pregnancy continued. But this isn't a one-off example of children getting pregnant: more than 700 girls aged 14 and under gave birth in 2014. That's more or less two a day.The 10 year old's pregnancy spawned a series of demonstrations and huge debate: about abortion, sex education, and the failure of the criminal justice system to prosecute the perpetrators of the abuse of children.For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly meets some of the schoolgirl mothers, and explores the reasons why Paraguayan girls are especially vulnerable to abuse. Why are families, the state and the law failing to protect them?

The last time anyone saw Hodei Egiluz, a 23-year-old computer engineer from Spain, was on a night out in the Belgian port of Antwerp in October 2013. Hodei is one of roughly 10,000 people who disappear in Europe every year. But his case has sparked a remarkable response. Practically his entire home town in Spain got behind the Belgian police search in one way or another. The search for Hodei triggered a campaign which eventually drew in figures such as footballer Ronaldo and the prime minister of Spain. But two years on Hodei is still missing. For Crossing Continents, Neal Razzell retraces Hodei's last hours in Antwerp and tries to unravel the mystery surrounding his disappearance. Producer: Charlotte McDonald.