WINNER – BRONZE, GOLD & GRAND TROPHY AT NEW YORK FESTIVALS RADIO AWARDS
From BBC Sounds, BBC Asian Network and CBC. Syria. 2018. ISIS is on the brink of defeat. Two-year-old Salmaan disappears amid the bombardment. In London, his grandfather desperately searches for answers. After the war against the Islamic State was won, what became of the children of its fighters? There are thousands of kids like Salmaan, with roots in Canada, the UK, the US and beyond - they were taken to IS or born there. Now they are trapped there without a way back home. Investigative reporter Poonam Taneja has covered the terror group for a decade and now embarks on a dangerous journey to find out what happened to Salmaan and all the kids like him, left behind in the Syrian desert. And she speaks to the grandparents trying to get them home.
WINNER – BRONZE, GOLD & GRAND TROPHY AT NEW YORK FESTIVALS RADIO AWARDS
From BBC Sounds, BBC Asian Network and CBC. Syria. 2018. ISIS is on the brink of defeat. Two-year-old Salmaan disappears amid the bombardment. In London, his grandfather desperately searches for answers. After the war against the Islamic State was won, what became of the children of its fighters? There are thousands of kids like Salmaan, with roots in Canada, the UK, the US and beyond - they were taken to IS or born there. Now they are trapped there without a way back home. Investigative reporter Poonam Taneja has covered the terror group for a decade and now embarks on a dangerous journey to find out what happened to Salmaan and all the kids like him, left behind in the Syrian desert. And she speaks to the grandparents trying to get them home.
Salmaan was one of thousands of children born into or brought to live under IS. They were intended to be the group’s next generation of fighters and mothers. Four years after the fall of IS, they’re stranded in prison camps and detention centres. Is it a race against time to rescue them?