蜜芽传媒

Stories of incredible escapes from around the world.

The Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram carry out attacks almost every day in northeast Nigeria. They have killed at least 17,000 people and left many more displaced. Hafsat Mohammed has been caught up in these attacks twice. She tells Matthew Bannister how she survived a horrific attack on a bus in 2013 and why, since then, she's been working in schools encouraging young people to reject extremism.

In the last days of Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, four young men took a considerable risk and formed a heavy metal band called Acrassicauda. All of them are now living in the United States where our reporter Andrew Purcell went to meet singer Faisal Talal and drummer Marwan Hussein, along with their new guitarist Moe Al-Ansari.

Rebeka Member isn't trying to escape her country, Bangladesh, but she is trying to escape the cultural expectations it puts on her. Every day she changes from her Sari into a shirt and trousers and wraps a turban around her head, dressing like a man so she can do what's seen as a man's job -- driving a cycle rickshaw.

Many people from small communities often talk about escaping, heading to the nearest city where they imagine there'll be opportunities waiting for them.Eko Mulyardi is from the tiny village of Karangpatihan in Eastern Java. He's the only one from there to have succeeded in leaving to go to University. But rather than make his escape, Eko chose to return. Karangpatihan has four times the global average of children born with physical and mental disabilities and Eko considered it his responsibility to help.

In 2013, Nick Gazzard from Gloucester in the West of England was a happy family man. His youngest daughter Hollie had recently broken up with her boyfriend and come back to live at the family home. The break up between Hollie and her boyfriend had been difficult, but Nick hadn't been too worried about his seemingly confident and independent daughter, until he received the devastating news that Hollie had been murdered by her ex-boyfriend. Today, Nick's determined that something positive will come from his daughter's murder and is trying to help other women escape abusive relationships

(Picture - Left: Hasfat Mohammed, Credit: Hasfat Mohammed
Right: Eko Mulyardi, Credit Candida Beveridge)