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Episode details

World Service,14 Dec 2023,9 mins

Vatican citizen Emanuela Orlandi disappears

Witness History

Available for over a year

In 1983, the disappearance of a teenage girl who was a citizen of Vatican City led to a scandal. When Pope John Paul II made a public appeal to the people holding Emanuela Orlandi captive, the world took notice and her case was treated as a suspected kidnapping. Forty years on, the reason she vanished is still unclear. Emanuela’s brother, Pietro Orlandi, speaks to Daniel Gordon about his life-long mission to find out what really happened to his sister. (Photo: A protester holds a photo of Emanuela. Credit: Stefano Montesi/Corbis/Getty Images)

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