Unreported World — Season 2018

Channel 4's multi-award-winning foreign affairs strand returns for a new series with a film following a volunteer ambulance service in Somalia's war-torn capital, Mogadishu. Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Sasha Achilli accompany the extraordinary team who risk their lives braving bombs, gunfights and al-Shabaab militants to get sick people to hospital in a city where the government struggles to cope and where they are many people's only hope. Reporter Seyi Rhodes;

Reporter Marcel Theroux and director Kate Hardie-Buckley travel to Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar, where the air quality can reach more than 100 times the accepted limit and is causing a public health disaster. A layer of smog caused by coal smoke blankets the city. The smog is full of floating soot particles, some of which are small enough to bypass the body's defences, causing fatal illnesses including respiratory disease, heart disease and cancer. According to Unicef, cases of respiratory infections have tripled here over the last 10 years as pollution surges. The team visit a children's hospital where senior paediatrician Dr Oyenbileg tells Theroux that respiratory illness is the biggest killer of children under five, as they are more susceptible to respiratory diseases such as bronchitis and pneumonia.

Reporter Rania Abouzeid and director Karim Shah travel to Kabul where the population, long used to living with bombs and gunfights, face a new danger: criminal gangs who kidnap for ransom. Often their victims are children. The Unreported World team join the lead detective of the police anti-kidnap squad as they attempt to reunite kidnap victims with their families.

Reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Jamie Welham visit the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean country famed for its pristine beaches and year-round sunshine, but where the UN has identified terrible crimes being committed against teenagers at the hands of sex tourists.

In Bollywood, reporter Sahar Zand and director Alicia Arce investigate how the #MeToo campaign has taken off in India's film industry. They talk to some of the country's top actresses, who are speaking out against assault, sexual harassment and rape. In a country where attitudes to women are changing but where many people still hold conservative views about the role of women and where victims of sexual assault are often regarded as shameful, can the #MeToo movement really gain momentum?

Reporter Ade Adepitan and director Johnny McDevitt join a team of young journalists reporting from inside one of Rio de Janeiro's most violent favelas. For the first time in 30 years, Brazil's president has ordered the army onto the streets of Rio to help the police take on drug gangs that control the city slums, and Unreported World is present as they try to enter the favelas. Getting caught in the crossfire is now a constant danger to the people who live there and the team talks to victims, families, campaigners and politicians about the impact of the crisis on the ordinary people who live in the favela.

Reporter Marcel Theroux is granted rare access to North Korea as the country contemplates reunification. As he explores the country with director Karim Shah and his official minder Mr Ri, the highlight of his trip is the first Mass Games to be held in five years, with 100,000 citizens singing their hearts out for the fatherland in celebration of the country's 70th anniversary. They also tour Pyongyang's stunning metro system, and visit a trade fair and a collective farm, and Theroux gets an officially sanctioned haircut, in a country where the wrong style can get you into trouble with the police. Travelling outside the city, his guides show off the country's first ski resort, and the team witness a changing country with an emerging soft capitalism.

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Eric McFarland visit Johannesburg to meet miners who are risking their lives to descend deep underground in South Africa's abandoned gold mines, hoping to scratch a dangerous living from whatever ore remains. With the mines controlled by violent gangs and surrounded by lawless settlements, Unreported World's miniature cameras capture the stark reality of life at the end of a gold rush.

Reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Jamie Welham travel to El Salvador to reveal what life is like for deportees from the US who are sent back to the gang-ravaged country under President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. President Trump says his government's latest crackdown is aimed at removing criminals and illegal immigrants, in particular members of the notorious Salvadoran-American street gang MS-13. However, official figures show that an increasing number of those who are being deported have no criminal record. There is a growing trend of Salvadorans with deep roots in the US - many of whom arrived in the States as children more than 20 years ago, and some of whom can't speak Spanish - being deported back to a country with which they have little relationship.

Reporter Sahar Zand and director Mauricio Gris travel to Mauritania in West Africa to discover how young girls and women are being force fed up to 10,000 calories a day because, when it comes to marriage, big is deemed beautiful. And, as Unreported World reveals, a food shortage has led many to choose an even riskier way to pile on the pounds, as they take chemicals - sometimes including some that are meant for animal consumption - with tragic consequences.