Stories From Home

A special New Year's Day programme themed around 'home' and the stories BBC language service journalists tell about where they're from.

Umaru Fofana in Sierra Leone remembers reporting on the Ebola crisis in Freetown, and how he struggled to keep his family at home safe from the risks of his work.

Can home be a place you've never lived? BBC Monitoring's Emilio San Pedro grew up in America where his parents were exiled from Cuba. He returns to Havana to discover more about his roots in the country his parents called home.

What if your hometown is famous for all the wrong reasons? Tatyana Movshevich grew up in Dzerzhinsk, a town famed for its toxic chemical production, and joked about by neighbouring areas as being home to two-headed purple skinned monsters. And yet in spite of that it's a place she's proud to call home.

When the Taliban overran Kunduz in northern Afghanistan last October BBC Afghan's Ahmad Yama had to flee. Since becoming a journalist, he fears the Taliban may have made him a target, and home is no longer a safe place.

Nita May from BBC Burmese was forced to leave home when she was arrested and imprisoned in 1990, accused of violation of state secrets. And while in prison she gave birth to a baby boy.

Plus how mangoes cure homesickness, how reindeers founded a Kyrgyz tribe, and how Amitabh Bachchan caused a rift in one journalist's home life.

(Picture: A house turned upside down
Picture credit: Getty Images)