Orla Guerin
Appearances
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
I'm just walking into the women's wing or what's left of it. You can see all around evidence of how intense the blaze was. There are burn marks here on all the walls and lots of ash at my feet. And there are a lot of belongings strewn around here. Piles of clothing, lots of cooking utensils. On the ground I can see a copy of the Bible.
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
You can just imagine what was endured by the women and children who were trapped here, locked in, unable to get away. Two survivors from the women's prison have come back for the first time. They want to tell their story. In silence, they walk through the charred ruins. 22-year-old Pascaleen has her hand to her mouth in horror. Nadine, who is 23, is soon in tears.
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
Pascaleen, can you tell me what happened to you that night?
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
That night, the prison was engulfed by chaos and by fire. Most of the guards long gone. By morning, thousands of the men had managed to break free. But the women were still trapped, among them Nadine, who was raped by two men and saw women and children dying around her.
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
Do you have any faith in justice here in the DRC?
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
I'm just coming into a tent in the grounds of a hospital in Goma. I've come here to meet a 25-year-old woman, Sifa Mohammed. Sifa was badly burned in the fire in the prison. Her right arm is very heavily bandaged and you can see burn marks on her arm and on her face. She was in prison without being convicted of anything, she says, and she was with her two-year-old daughter, Esther.
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
They had all gone. Sifa, I'm sorry to ask this question, but can you tell me what happened to your daughter, Esther?
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
The full story of what happened in the prison may never be known. Sifa says no one is looking for the truth. She and the other survivors we spoke to have not been contacted by anyone. Not the rebels in control in Goma now, nor the government in Kinshasa, which used to run the prison.
Global News Podcast
Fatalities and injuries in German Christmas market attack
It's extremely rare to get access inside these walls. There's iron gate after iron gate. All along this corridor, there are numbered cells. There are guards here, all of them with their faces covered, one standing outside each of the cells. Hello. We've been allowed to get a look inside one of the cells, but we've been told we can't speak to the men. The cell is quite full.
Global News Podcast
Fatalities and injuries in German Christmas market attack
There are men sitting on the ground, lining both sides, sitting on blankets and thin mattresses. This is the biggest detention centre for IS prisoners. Most of the men being held here were with IS until the group made its last stand. Kurdish security sources tell us they were deeply committed to the IS ideology. What happens to these prisoners is one of the big questions facing this country.
Global News Podcast
Fatalities and injuries in German Christmas market attack
Hello, I'm Orla from BBC TV. We were taken to meet a detainee who didn't want to be named. He's 28 and hoping one day to get back to Australia. He said he was speaking freely, but on the key questions, he had little to say. Do you have blood on your hands? Were you involved in killing anybody with IS? Yes.
Global News Podcast
Fatalities and injuries in German Christmas market attack
Did you support what they were doing, what IS was doing?
Global News Podcast
Fatalities and injuries in German Christmas market attack
This was IS in its heyday in the city of Raqqa in 2014. It brutalised one third of Syria and Iraq before it was driven out five years later. A key role in that defeat was played by the SDF, mostly Kurdish forces backed by the US. General Masloom Abdi, commander of the SDF, tells us IS is now gearing up again.
Global News Podcast
Fatalities and injuries in German Christmas market attack
And the hope has grown in places like Roj camp, It's a bleak and windswept expanse of tents, home to almost 3,000 women and children, never tried or convicted. They are the families of IS fighters and supporters. I'm with the manager of the camp. For security reasons, she doesn't want to be named. Can I ask you, what has the mood in the camp been like since the fall of the Assad regime?
Global News Podcast
Fatalities and injuries in German Christmas market attack
There are growing fears that IS will attempt to free its people from camps and prisons here in the northeast. That's just one of the threats facing the new Syria.