International report

Thousands of Nigerian women - who embarked on the dangerous land journey through the Sahara Desert to North Africa with the hope of crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Europe often had their dreams cut short when they arrived in Libya. Human traffickers often sold them into slavery where they were sexually exploited. Some of those repatriated had babies following rape by their Libyan captors. Sam Olukoya in Benin city reports on the challenges the mothers face in raising their Libyan-born babies in Nigeria following their return home.

Nigerians make up the largest number of irregular migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa who want to enter Europe. Thousands of them end up being stranded in Libya after failing to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa into Europe. Human traffickers often sell the stranded Nigerians and other Sub-Saharan Africans into slavery where they are held in dire conditions. Against a background of growing concern over their plight, the International Organization for Migration, IOM, has in the last two years repatriated more than 10,000 stranded Nigerians from Libya. Some of the repatriated women returned home with babies conceived following rape by Libyan men. Sam Olukoya reports from Benin city on the sexual exploitation women suffered while in Libya.

Plastic waste is a global issue, and a global partnership has set to work in Côte d'Ivoire to transform waste into classrooms and reduce the spread of disease at the same time - all while improving incomes for waste collectors.

UNICEF has established a partnership with a Colombian social enterprise to kickstart a supply chain in Côte d'Ivoire which will turn the plastic on the streets into giant Lego bricks.

As the building technique is cheaper than other methods, this could become a regional or even continental success story.

Frank Hersey, our correspondent in Côte d'Ivoire, went to find out more.

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Have you ever had a question, to which you’d love to know the answer?

How many teeth does a great white shark have? How do slugs find lettuce in the garden?

Well it’s James Souce’s job to find the answers.

James works in a team of people in New York’s public library who spend their days answering a myriad of strange questions.

Colm Flynn went to meet him in this report.

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Could people lose their sanity over Brexit?

The constant twist and turns might be entertaining to watch from outside, but when it's about your own future inside the United Kingdom, it may cause anxiety and stress.

EU citizens in Scotland suffer from Brexit anxiety, even though Scotland is proving to be more welcoming to EU nationals than south of the border, according to research.

Assa Samake-Roman reports on this issue.

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In Guinea, female genital mutilation is still performed on a daily basis.

Statistics show about 97 percent of the female population have been excised, making Guinea among the top countries in the world where genital mutilation is most widely practiced.

But this practice goes on, despite calls from members of parliament for it to be abandoned as Karim Kamara reports from the capital Conakry.

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Turkey is facing another refugee exodus, as Syrian government forces close in on Idlib, the last rebel held enclave in the country.

A summit in Ankara earlier this month attended by the presidents of Turkey, Russia and Iran ended in deadlock over Turkish efforts to end the Idlib siege.

But any new refugee exodus to Turkey could become Europe’s problem too. Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned he will open his country's borders to return refugees to a safe zone in northern Syria, adding it cannot take any more people.

Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

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Six months ago, New Zealand was rocked by a devastating terrorist attack - a massacre at two mosques in Christchurch which took the lives of 51 people.

The government moved quickly to overhaul the country's gun laws and as part of a nationwide buyback scheme, New Zealanders have until December to hand over their weapons.

While the reforms have won widespread support, they've sparked anger among some licenced gun owners, such as hunters and farmers who say their livelihoods are at risk.

Richelle Harrison Plesse reports from Wellington, New Zealand.

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In Cameroon's minority English-speaking communities, which have been hit since late 2016 by a deadly sociopolitical crisis, a new criminal trade, kidnapping for ransom, has emerged.

The phenomenon, which has spread rapidly across the region’s towns and cities,was hardly heard of before the unrest began.

Today, it is commonplace to hear that people have been seized from their homes, work places, on journeys and even from the streets in broad daylight.

Civil servants, politicians, business people, religious and community leaders, teachers and students have all been victims.

From Bamenda, correspondent Alphonse Tebeck has more.

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As we've heard earlier in this series, drug cartels are well established in Sinaloa, a state in north-west Mexico. Their omnipresence means the drug lords’ tastes and values have had a huge impact on local culture.

One of its most prominent manifestations is the tradition of “narcocorridos”: songs extolling the virtues of drug kingpins. As the genre has become the soundtrack of daily life in Sinaloa, a number of young bands have set about singing the praises of criminals in the hope of becoming famous. Sometimes without measuring the danger that comes with it as Alix Hardy explains in this fourth report.

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