Iraq and United Arab Emirates

Available for over a year

During a nervous trip to reach the recently besieged Shia town of Amerli in northern Iraq, Gabriel Gatehouse evades Islamic State fighters and checkpoints with a Shia militiaman who is trying to return home for the first time in three months. When they get to Amerli, the man looks for his family, ethnic Turkmen. They fear the worst, but are then reunited with the man's relatives, including his ten-year old nephew, who still has the AK-47 he had been given to help fight off IS. In Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Alastair Newton Brown joins a crowd to watch kushti, a traditional form of Indian wrestling. Wrestlers and spectators are expat workers from the subcontintent, and kushti is their weekly respite from otherwise very long working hours. Presenter: Owen Bennett Jones Producer: Arlene Gregorius Photo of Amerli militiaman and his nephew: BBC