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Iraqi Kurdistan and Europe's Roma

Hannah Lucinda Smith in Kirkuk sees the new "frontier" between Kurdish and IS territory in Iraq; Nick Thorpe joins a commemoration of the thousands of Roma killed at Auschwitz

Is this the world's newest border? Hannah Lucinda Smith is in Kirkuk to see the fortifications being built up on both sides of the dividing line between Kurdish and Islamic State territory in Iraq. Neither Iraqi Kurdistan nor IS is an internationally-recognised entity, yet both camps are doing their best to mark out their turf - and create new facts on the ground. In Poland, Nick Thorpe joins a commemoration of the thousands of Roma people who were killed at the camp in Auschwitz during the 1940s. The Nazis hoped to erase "gypsies" from Europe altogether, but didn't succeed. Yet unlike the Jewish community worldwide, the global Roma diaspora seems less keen to remember the era - or the crimes committed against it.

Introduced by Pascale Harter.
Producer: Polly Hope

Photo: A peshmerga soldier holds a Kurdish flag at an outpost on the edges of Kirkuk, July 3, 2014 (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Available now

11 minutes

Last on

Fri 8 Aug 2014 19:50GMT

Broadcast

  • Fri 8 Aug 2014 19:50GMT