The Documentary Podcast Folgen

For years now, an Islamist insurgency in the Sahel region has been claiming thousands of lives and displacing millions of people. There are fears that it is spreading to one of West Africa’s most stable countries. Ed Butler investigates some new and disturbing indications that fighting on Ghana’s northern border with Burkina Faso has the potential to spread south as well. It is not just the Islamist insurgency, but homegrown conflicts inside Ghana that have the potential to spread. And we hear accounts of smuggled livestock, fuel and weapons, as well as stories of Ghanaian fighters joining the Islamist uprising in the north.

Katie Smith is in New Orleans on the eve of Super Bowl LIX to bring you the atmosphere and the stories ahead of Philadelphia Eagles v Kansas City Chiefs. Katie meets Jackie Wallace who had it all, but the three-time Super Bowl star had a demon he could not deal with. After retirement, he slipped into addiction and lost everything. New Orleans is the home of Jazz, and the father of Jazz is Fats Waller. His great grandson, Darren Waller was a big name in the NFL. He retired last year to turn his mind to music. We catch up with him to talk about football, fame and his family's musical heritage. Plus, New Orleans is known as the party capital of the South, but in August 2005 that all changed. Now when people think of New Orleans, they think of Hurricane Katrina. Doug Thornton was, and still is, the manager of the Super Dome, and through his eyes we will learn what it was like to be in the Super Dome when Katrina hit and how it was rebuilt.

Aalia Farzan of BBC Afghan services left her life in Afghanistan after the Taliban retook the country in 2021 and came to London, and it was there she met her now husband. She speaks about this unlikely love story, and sheds some light on what Afghan courtship entails. Ilona Hromliuk of BBC Ukrainian has spoken to women who travel thousands of miles across Ukraine, to go on a date with their husbands who are fighting on the frontlines. Presenter: Feranak Amidi Producers: Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)