EPISODE · Jun 18, 2009 · 22 MIN
Assignment - America's Somali Bantu
from The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2009 · host BBC World Service
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled from Somalia since civil war broke out there in the early 1990s. Many of them go to refugee camps in Kenya, others to Tanzania - and many have spent more than 15 years living in those camps. But one group has been more fortunate than others - the Somali Bantu, whose ancestors were taken to Somalia as slaves from southern Africa in the 19th Century. In 2001 the Somali Bantu were recognised as an especially vulnerable group by the United States and two years later 12,000 of them were airlifted out of the camps and flown to new, permanent homes in the United States. In this week's Assignment Tim Mansel visits one group of them in the western city of Boise in Idaho.
What this episode covers
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled from Somalia since civil war broke out there in the early 1990s. Many of them go to refugee camps in Kenya, others to Tanzania - and many have spent more than 15 years living in those camps. But one group has been more fortunate than others - the Somali Bantu, whose ancestors were taken to Somalia as slaves from southern Africa in the 19th Century. In 2001 the Somali Bantu were recognised as an especially vulnerable group by the United States and two years later 12,000 of them were airlifted out of the camps and flown to new, permanent homes in the United States. In this week's Assignment Tim Mansel visits one group of them in the western city of Boise in Idaho.
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Assignment - America's Somali Bantu
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