26/03/2016 Reporters

Now on BBC News, it's time for Reporters.

Welcome to Reporters, I am Philippa Thomas.

From here in the world's newsroom, we send our correspondents

to bring you the best stories from across the globe.

This is how Bosnia was before the war,

and this is what Radovan Karadzic destroyed.

Return to Sarajevo as the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan

Karadzic is found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity

in the war of the 1990s, Allan Little went

back to the city to meet some of the victims

Women were raped, and I could actually hear this happening

just behind the wall of the room in which I was kept.

As Belgium becomes the new front line

in Europe's war on terror, we report from Molenbeek,

that has become a fertile recruiting ground for jihadis.

Belgium has a higher number of jihadis in Syria per capita

And for the past few weeks, I have been spending

We meet the teenage Nigerian girl who escaped the Islamist group

after being forced to go on a suicide mission.

They said if we died, we would enter paradise.

But it isn't a good thing to carry a bomb

Miami blues - as President Obama becomes the first US President

to visit Cuba in 88 years, we find many Cuban-Americans

still against any ties with the Communist island.

I'd never thought I would see a day where Air Force One

with the United States of America President on board

we find out how one of the top football clubs in England,

Arsenal, is helping children in Iraq to rebuild their lives.

Look at the tears and the smiles on their faces today.

It is like they are forgetting all the violence and the war

He was seen as the man who harnessed the twin demons

of the Bosnian conflict - ethnic nationalism and war.

The former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was this week

convicted of some of the worst crimes committed in Europe

including genocide and crimes against humanity.

In a verdict seen as vital to Bosnia's future.

He is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail.

Allan Little, who reported for us on the Bosnian conflict

of the 1990s, has returned to Sarajevo.

A warning, though, you may find some of this report distressing.

Count four, extermination, a crime against humanity...

Two decades ago, Radovan Karadzic harnessed the twin demons

of Balkan history, ethnic nationalism and war.

They led him to a prison cell in The Hague.

His forces besieged the city of Sarajevo for 1,000 days.

The woman in the white coat is wounded by gunfire.

She is taken to hospital by UN peacekeepers.

The bullet that passed through her has killed her seven-year-old son.

She took me back to where it happened.

She went to The Hague to give evidence.

I know that nothing will bring him back,

but I will go again tomorrow if they ask me.

I cannot tell you how important it was for me to testify.

At Srebrenica, Karadzic's forces rounded up and killed

8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the space of a few days.

For this, Karadzic is accused of genocide.

Hassan Nuhanovic survived only because he worked as a translator

His younger brother and his father were murdered.

The purpose of the genocide ruling is to prevent the future genocides.

So that the Serb kids, the new generation, the Bosnian kids,

the Croat kids, do not live through the same

Karadzic is accused of the forced removal

of hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs,

to create an ethnically pure Serb state.

Thousands of men were held in prison camps where many were murdered.

People were being taken out, tortured, killed.

just behind the wall of the room in which I was kept.

In this prewar school photo, Muslim and Serb teenagers

sit side-by-side, unconcerned by ethnic difference.

This is how Bosnia was before the war,

and this is what Radovan Karadzic managed to destroy.

Now it is going to take us decades and generations

to possibly recreate this kind of community.

was convicted of war crimes at The Hague tribunal.

He returned to Bosnia in 2013 after serving his sentence.

This is how fellow Serbs greeted him.

Do you think that, for many Bosnian Serb people,

Absolutely, they consider him a hero.

Karadzic is absolutely a hero and a victim,

and Serbs here see it as an injustice towards them.

Bosnia looks to the young for deliverance from its past.

when his father was beaten to death in a concentration camp.

I thought about the person who killed my father,

and I thought whose shoes I would rather be in,

I thought whatever happens, I would still rather live this life

that I have lived than live with the fact

that I knew my father had killed someone.

I think that I have avenged my father.

I am now a family man, and I am living

a happy and satisfied and fulfilled life.

And that is the best form of vengeance?

I think happiness and living well is the best form of revenge.

To be tough on terror or the causes of terror,

we need to understand what makes it flourish.

As Belgium has become the new front line in Europe's war on terror,

attention is being centred on the working-class district

of Brussels known as Molenbeek, which has become known

as a fertile recruiting ground for jihadi fighters.

It is also where the Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam

Secunder Kermani has been spending time in Molenbeek

to find out why community conditions there are so ripe for terror.

Molenbeek, to the dismay of most of its residents,

We don't know if today's attackers came from here.

of Belgium's problems with radicalisation.

Just last Friday, security services were celebrating

The final member of the cell in Paris during November's attacks.

He, three of the Paris attackers and many in their support

Today's attacks have left some worrying

what will be revealed and what will happen next.

Belgium has a higher number of jihadis in Syria per capita

For the past few weeks, I have been spending time here

One reason many in the Muslim community here give is

that when the Syrian conflict started, authorities didn't

seem overly concerned by the presence of recruiters.

Molenbeek has 40% youth unemployment.

There are a lot of disaffected young men here,

some are susceptible to the IS message.

one of Molenbeek's most well-known preachers.

He is now in Syria with a rebel group fighting

against both Islamic State and the Assad regime.

In Molenbeek, many used to label him a radical.

Unlike a new generation of IS jihadists,

he says he is firmly against attacks in the West.

I asked him why he thought so many young people

from his old neighbourhood joined IS.

For some, the solution to the threat from Islamic State

For others, it is resolving issues close to home.

they are already too late for today's victims.

We still don't the fate of the 200 Nigerian school girls kidnapped

But there is evidence that the Islamist group

has been forcing girls as young as 12 to carry out suicide bombings.

The BBC has spoken to one girl who says she was ordered

by Boko Haram to carry out such a suicide mission.

Anne Soy reports from northern Nigeria.

This is Howe - it is not her real name, and she doesn't know her age.

About a year ago, she married into Boko Haram

and moved into one of their camps with her fighter husband.

instructed to explode at a refugee camp.

Two of her friends did just that, killing themselves

and 58 others, mostly women and children.

Just 24 hours before she was due to detonate,

she escaped the clutches of the militants

and she has decided to tell us her story.

She is still traumatised by what happened,

so for her well-being, we asked her to speak to a journalist

TRANSLATION: My first husband took me to the Boko Haram camp.

He said they would take me to the bush

and remove all the evil spirits from my body.

I knew they were Boko Haram, but I followed them willingly.

I said, "If you help me remove the sickness,

When they came back from the operations in the bush,

they would gather us and tell us about their attacks.

They would ask us to study what they were teaching us.

They said if we died, we would enter paradise.

Once, a woman went somewhere without telling them.

They wanted me to marry again after my husband left,

That is when they told me I should take the bomb.

Does that mean they only ask women who are no longer useful to them

they tell you to go on a suicide mission.

We were told to detonate at the camp.

Since my mum was residing in the camp,

I would rather go and live with my family.

So I snuck out early in the morning without their knowledge.

The following morning, I got to the camp.

That is when I learned that had been a bomb blast.

I saw a video of the mutilated body of one of the girls.

to carry a bomb to kill fellow human beings.

This is the spot where the February attack happened.

There are still bloodstains on the road,

a constant reminder to the residents here

Many of them are survivors or lost loved ones.

We are told there was a huge crowd here crossing the road

from one side of the camp to the other

I am told queueing in the camp is now banned.

Instead jerry cans form the line and residents sit quietly,

Instead, meals are prepared in small communities.

They cannot trust anyone, not even children.

when shrapnel hit her stomach and hand.

She said she still cannot sleep after what she saw.

TRANSLATION: We brought our containers to get water.

At the same time, a soldier was trying to arrange our queues.

There was this woman wearing a red veil.

She said can't we beat up this soldier

When I heard that, I turned back to look at her.

As soon as I walked onto the road, she shouted,

pretending her stomach was hurting her.

It was like something was poured around us.

I was frightened when I saw blood all around me and the dead bodies.

For Howe at least, the ordeal is over.

She finally feels safe and is planning her future,

I would not have anything to do with the militants.

I will marry if I get a willing suitor.

I would have known everything I wanted to know.

When President Obama steps aside in ten months' time,

one of his biggest foreign-policy successes

American hostility to the country had looked anachronistic,

This American leader has changed all that,

opening relations with an historic presidential trip to Cuba this week.

Many Cuban-Americans are still against

any engagement with the Communist island.

Nick Bryant has been to Miami's Little Havana

for the Cuban-American exiles of Little Havana.

For decades they have been venting their fury at the Castro brothers

and any American President who has even flirted

Human rights for Cubans, human rights for Cubans!

is seen as a betrayal of them and American values,

one that legitimises the Communist government they despise.

I never thought I would see the day where Air Force One,

with the United States of America President on board,

when the President aboard Air Force One land in a free Cuba.

Just around the corner, mid morning mojitos and cigars

for those who didn't take part in the protest.

younger Cuban Americans especially

I think it is a good thing. Let's see what comes out of it.

I think that is the most important thing.

It doesn't worry you that he is there? No.

At this time of new departures, America has

signed an agreement with Cuba to re-establish scheduled services

between two countries separated by only a small stretch of water.

Soon there should be over 100 daily round-trip flights.

It's just 15 minutes' flying time between the southern most tip

But the countries have been estranged now

Many Cuban Americans believe the embargo

has not just been ineffective but counter-productive.

to blame America for Cuban economic woes.

There haven't been any good changes in the past 50 years.

Our pilot, Tony Anderson, was born in Cuba,

and he is delighted to see President Obama make the flight.

It's time for us to connect once again.

Some of us are living here, and some are there,

What has been noticeable about the protests is their scale.

This march lasted only a couple of streets

because the exiles are so old and so frail,

and it attracted hundreds, rather than thousands,

a pale imitation of demonstrations from decades past.

Gone are the days when the exile community

dictated America's policy toward Cuba.

Professional footballers don't always get a good press about how

they spend their money, but Arsenal players have donated

a day's pay to help build pitchs for the children

The English club has teamed up with Save the Children to fund

the project which will train both boys and girls.

Catrin Nye travelled with the Arsenal women's

football captain, Alex Scott, as she trained young girls

forced to flee their homes by war in Iraq,

and the wealth and fame of Arsenal Football Club.

These two things do not obviously have much in common.

But a new project is trying to change that.

For me, growing up, football was more than a game then,

Arsenal have built two pitches for children who fled war.

It is a very powerful statement that a club like Arsenal

can come in and say, not just that you are a part

of our community, but also that we care.

So this is Kurdistan in northern Iraq, and relative safety

compared to the rest of the country,

but we are still just a few hours from the front line,

is one of more than 6,000 people living in this camp.

Since January 2014, more than 3 million Iraqis

have fled their homes - half are children.

Are there any good things at the camp, about living here?

today with Alex Scott as an extra player.

Boys and girls are learning to play football here.

Why did you decide today that Alex would teach the girls?

To them, she is a big source of inspiration,

the fact that she is a woman and has made it internationally.

Look at the cheers and the smiles on their faces today,

it is like they are forgetting the violence and the war

You would never think people would be living like this.

Basically, we are in the middle of nowhere, there is nothing around.

But they just carry on with their life every day,

And that is all from Reporters for this week.

From me, Philippa Thomas, goodbye for now.

It has been very unpleasant for some of us so