A bonus conversation with British rapper and spoken word artist Kojey Radical recorded live at the 6Music Festival, discussing themes of love, his connection to his Ghanaian heritage and his dad.

An investigation into the 'killing machine' of one of Africa's most repressive and secretive countries. Three years ago there was widespread unrest in the East African country of Burundi when the country’s president ran for a third term. Protestors said he was violating the constitution that limits presidential terms to just two. Since then street protests have ended but a BBC investigation has now uncovered evidence of government sponsored torture and killings designed to silence dissent. The government has always denied any human rights violations, and declined to comment on the allegations in this programme. Reporter Maud Jullien. Producers Charlotte Atwood and Michael Gallagher.

*This programme contains graphic scenes of torture and killing.

(Image: A computer generated image of an alleged detention house in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura. A red liquid, which looked like blood, was seen pouring from its gutter. Credit: BBC)

Nigerian patients held in hospital because they can’t pay their medical bills.

In March 2016, a young woman went into labour. She was rushed to a local, private hospital in south-east Nigeria where she gave birth by caesarean section. But when the hospital discovered this teenage mother didn’t have the money to pay for her treatment, she and her son were unable to leave. They remained there for 16 months – until the police arrived and released them.

This is not an isolated case. In Nigeria, very few health services are free of charge, and campaigners estimate that thousands have been detained in hospitals for failing to pay their bills. It’s become an increasingly high-profile issue – one couple have been awarded compensation after going through the courts.

For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores a widespread abuse – meeting victims, and the hospital managers attempting to manage their budgets in a health system under enormous pressure, where only 5% of Nigerians are covered by health insurance.

Producer: Josephine Casserly

(Photo: Ngozi Osegbo was awarded compensation by a court after she and her husband were detained in a hospital because they couldn't pay their medical bills. BBC PHOTO)

'He was using prisoners like oxen for ploughing for his own gain'. An ex-convict recalls the prison officer in charge of the prison farm he worked on in Uganda. The country has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in Africa. It also has one of the continent's most developed systems of prison labour. For Crossing Continents, Ed Butler reports from Uganda where most of the country's 54,000 inmates are now serving an economic purpose, working for the benefit of an elite collection of private farmers and other business interests - even though half of them have not been convicted of any crime. He speaks to current and former prisoners, to find out how the system works, and asks: is the country breaking its international pledges on prisoner treatment?

Presented and produced by Ed Butler.

(Image: Prisoners at Patongo Prison, Uganda. Credit: David Brunetti).

Seaweed is liberating women in a conservative corner of east Africa. Thousands of women have gained more control over their lives thanks to Zanzibar's seaweed farms. In a traditional island village there is a surprisingly high divorce rate and women have safeguarded their interests with earnings from this salty crop which has given them a much needed income and new independence. At first the husbands were outraged - they complained that seaweed farming made women too tired for their matrimonial duties. The women eventually prevailed but their hard won freedom is now threatened by climate change. Lucy Ash meets the seaweed farmers of Paje village and looks at the ways they are fighting to save their livelihood and raise their families. Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou.

Uganda has now taken in more than a million refugees who have fled civil war in neighbouring South Sudan. And more are coming every day. It's said that Uganda has the most generous refugee policy in the world, with new arrivals given land and allowed to work. But the majority of South Sudanese refugees are women and children who have lost almost everything and, as Ruth Alexander discovers, the reality of starting a new life from scratch is far from straightforward.

Produced by John Murphy.

For generations those who, for biological reasons, don't fit the usual male/female categories have faced violence and stigma in Kenya. Intersex people - as they are commonly known in Kenya - were traditionally seen as a bad omen bringing a curse upon their family and neighbours. Most were kept in hiding and many were killed at birth. But now a new generation of home-grown activists and medical experts are helping intersex people to come out into the open. They're rejecting the old idea that intersex people must choose a gender in infancy and stick to it and are calling on the government to instead grant them legal recognition. BBC Africa's Health Correspondent Anne Soy meets some of the rural families struggling to find acceptance for their intersex children and witnesses the efforts health workers and activists are making to promote understanding of the condition. She also meets a successful gospel singer who recently came out as intersex and hears from those who see the campaign for inter-sex recognition as part of a wider attack on the traditional Kenyan family.

Helen Grady producing.

Ed Butler explores the secretive and shocking world of Malawi's "hyenas". These are the men hired to sexually initiate or cleanse adolescent and pre-adolescent girls - some said to be 12 years old, or even younger. It's a traditional custom that is endorsed and funded by the communities themselves, even the children's families. We meet some of the victims, the regional chief campaigning to stop the practice, and the hyenas themselves, and ask if enough is being done to stamp out a custom that's not just damaging on a human scale, but is also undermining the country's economic development.

Reported and produced by Ed Butler.

Nkem Ifejika cant speak the language of his forefathers. Nkem is British of Nigerian descent and comes from one of Nigeria's biggest ethnic groups the Igbo. He's one of the millions of Nigerians, who live in the diaspora - almost two hundred thousand of them living here in Britain. Nkem wants to know why he was never taught Igbo as a child and why the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, has warned that Igbo faces extinction in the next fifty years.

In this week's Crossing Continents, Nkem travels to the Igbo heartland in the southeast of Nigeria to explore the demise of a once proud language. He discovers that recent history has had profound effects on Igbo culture and identity. He discovers too that some Igbos are seeking to reassert their language and culture. Part of this is a resurgence of Igbo identity under a new 'Biafran' movement. Is this likely to find traction or will it ignite painful divisions from the past and lead to renewed tensions across Nigeria. From Nkem's own London-based family - where his wife is teaching both him and their son to speak Igbo - to the ancestral villages of Anambra State, 'Forgetting Igbo' reveals shifting perspectives on Nigeria's colonial past, emerging new ambitions for its future - and deep fault lines at the heart of its society.

Produced by Michael Gallagher.

Why are so many young people leaving Algeria? Unlike Syria or Libya, Algeria is supposedly a beacon of stability in a troubled region and it enjoys vast wealth from its oil and gas resources. Yet it remains a major source of illegal migrants to Europe and thousands continue to risk their lives crossing the sea to get there. They are known as 'Harraga', derived from the verb to burn in Arabic because they burn their identity documents. President Bouteflika's right hand man has called the harraga phenomenon "a national tragedy". Lucy Ash meets some of those heading for Europe's Eldorado and those bereaved friends and families of harragas who have disappeared in the Mediterranean. John Murphy producing.

South Africa is in crisis as the national electricity generator, Eskom, struggles to provide an adequate power supply and rolling blackouts hit the country on a regular basis. As Neal Razzell reports, there's now concern that jobs and growth are at risk from the power cuts, and the ruling ANC - which blames the problem on inheriting an apartheid-era network designed only for the white population - stands accused of complacency and incompetence.

Michael Gallagher producing.