Uncover - S27 E3: Breakthrough | "Bloodlines"

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Poonam finally gets into the prison camp where the women and children of suspected IS fighters are being held. There, she meets a Canadian woman who has information about baby Salmaan. But it’s clear she isn’t telling Poonam everything.

This is a CBC Podcast. We've been in Syria almost a week, but it feels so much longer. A few regime checkpoints here and there, which we're going to be avoiding again. We don't have the paperwork from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. One wrong turn and we're on our way to a prison in Damascus. But we're here to meet with someone who could help with our search for baby Salman. Yeah, they're supposed to be here in this, um, oh, I can see the vehicle. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Someone's dancing on the rooftop. Perfect. I think that's him. That's David. Is that David and he's dancing on the rooftop of the car? Oh, wow. In the rain.

That tells it. I now know who this guy is, yes. This guy dancing on the roof of a Toyota SUV is David Eubank. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. How are you? Hi. Hello. Great to meet you. You're English.

Hi, I'm Poonam. I'm Poonam Taneja. I'm David. Hi, David. David is ex-US Army Special Forces and a devout Christian. After his time in the Army, he set up the Free Burma Rangers. It's a humanitarian organisation that gives aid to civilians in war zones. That was quite some performance. Well, I'm actually, my daughters are really good dancers.

And my son kicked off one of my favourite songs, as we're waiting for you all, called Come On Eileen. And I was just thought, I love that song. I love these people. So I didn't expect you to catch me in the act. But anyway, there's always joy. It was pretty hard to miss you. You were dancing on the rooftop of your car at a gas station. What a lovely start to the day. Brilliant. Thank you. Well, thanks for being here. Great story. David's a maverick, the kind of guy you often find in conflict zones. He's been in Syria for the past few years with his wife and children and a motley crew of humanitarian and ex-military volunteers.

a motley crew of humanitarian and ex-military volunteers. We've been supporting and working here for the last seven years, in and out. We're helping rebuild the hospital and do other kids' programs and medical work. I wanted to talk to him because he was in the village of Baguz in 2019. This is where Islamic State Group made its last stand. Where we believe Aisha, Salman's mother, died, and where Ash thinks Salman was too. I just wanted to know, what did you see?

What was the situation? Carnage, rubble, all that. Dead bodies everywhere. And, I mean, whole tent sites full of improvised explosives. And all the villagers had evacuated. Bagus and the villages behind were empty. It's hard to find accurate numbers. But when IS fell, the vast majority of those who funneled out of Bagus were women and children. Among them were many orphans. Somewhere alone, others had been picked up by women who were fleeing. If Salman survived, and if he got out,

then this could have been how. When the kids came out then, there were many, many orphans. Many. And, I mean, we were just, like, picking them up, trying to stick them somewhere in a truck. You know, they bring the trucks up every day, give them food, clean them up. If they're wounded, change their diapers. That's what my kids, my wife and kids were doing. Put them on trucks and send them up. David and his team gave medical aid to some of these kids. But many of them were too sick and didn't

survive. Those who did were transported by Kurdish forces to Al-Hol, 300 kilometers away. That's where Juwan and I saw all those tiny graves. Once we got to Al-Hol later in April and May of that same year, 2019, suddenly there was two like little compounds within Al-Hol later in April and May of that same year, 2019, suddenly there was two little compounds within Al-Hal full of orphans, just full of, these were foreign orphans that we were with. How old were they? There was babies, like months old babies, orphans. And they were from three months old or less

all the way up to, I remember, a 14, 15-year-old boy. Nobody stayed behind in Baguz? No. And I think the orphans, 99%, are in Al-Hol. I've looked into this, looked into the kids, looked into their parents, and it feels as if after the fall of Baguz, many of them should have been returned to safety, but they've been languishing in camps since then. Are we running out of time to prevent them from being radicalized, from dying, from facing absolutely zero prospects in the future? Is it a race against time? It's a race against every second. I just think if I was a young boy, I didn't know evil of ISIS. I just

grew up in this family. And then my dad is killed. Maybe my mom is wounded. My brother or sister killed. Others are killed. And all I see is the SDF and allied coalition forces pounding us. And then suddenly I'm taken to a prison. What hope do I have? Oh, if you follow God this certain way, even martyrdom will achieve this. Well, I got no other choice. I'm going to get out of here and fight. We came to fight ISIS because ISIS had an evil message that only they counted. Well, we're giving the same message. We count, you don't.

That's also evil. Every country, take your people back. Try them in your own courts, by your own systems. Make up new laws if you have to. And then these kids, give them a chance. I'm Poonam Taneja. This is Bloodlines. Bloodlines. We can go in now Right

So we're just driving in There's an electric metal gate guarding it Guarding the entrance We're still waiting on permission to get back into our hall camp We want to show Salman's photo to the staff who work with kids there We're still waiting on permission to get back into Al-Hol camp. We want to show Salman's photo to the staff who work with kids there. But after days of bombings, cancel meetings, false starts and a lot of time on the phone, we've finally been given permission to visit the smaller camp, Al-Raj.

We see children first, tiny children here, straight ahead. There are about 3,000 people in Al Raj, almost all of them women and children. Children's clothes are strewn everywhere, on washing lines, between tents, on the razor wire fence. And beyond the fence, on the razor wire fence. And beyond the fence, there's nothing really. A few oil wells, scrubby rock, barren and lifeless. We're walking to the tents now. Hopefully to see some of the women that we'd arranged to see. In the months leading up to my trip, I'd been putting out feelers in the camps,

asking my contacts to find women willing to speak to me, and if anyone knew Salman and his mother Aisha. And then, I got this voice message from a Canadian woman in Rajkamp. She said that you guys wanted to know about a woman named Aisha

and her child. I know her personally, Aisha. Dead security, she's coming with us. Great, OK. We're being chaperoned into the camp by a young woman in her 20s. She's super smiley and friendly. When I compliment her scarf, she puts it around my shoulders. As we leave the security office, I notice she loads a handgun

and discreetly tuts it into the back of her jeans. Right, camp is getting a little busy now. Quite a few children up ahead near where the tents are. They all look under seven years old. A couple of them are on their scooters. As I walk through the camp, I catch myself scanning their faces, searching for Salman. So now we're in the midst of the camp.

We're surrounded by tents. Usually, the camp team bring the women into the office. Today, we've asked to go with them to find them, and it's turning out to be quite a search. Each tent is numbered. I've seen 29 is there, 33, and each section has a number too. We've been walking through the camp for about 15 minutes,

looking for the Canadian woman who sent that voice message. We've passed through a courtyard where there's a souk, a marketplace, a dozen or so shops that sell food, clothes, toys, cosmetics. All I can see is kids everywhere, and small kids. Kids from all over the world. I think those kids look Trinidadian. I'm pretty sure I saw some of them last year. Hello.

Do you speak English? Are you from Trinidad? You're from Trinidad? No, I'm not from Trinidad. Oh, OK. Hi. Sorry. Hi. How are you? I'm good. My name's Poonam. I was wondering if you guys were from Trinidad.

No, not from Canada. If you didn't hear that, she said, I'm from Canada. And just like that, we've just stumbled on the woman we were looking for. She said she'd be happy to talk with us, but talking to Western journalists here is sometimes risky. She asked if we would just use her initials. So we're calling her DA. We've been looking for you. I've been looking for you. I've heard so much about you and... Really? Dia's petite.

She wears a niqab, like many of the women here, and glasses, which keep slipping down her nose. It's very, very muddy. OK, shall we sit here? Yeah. We're sort of perched on this little wall. I'm Poonam. I know that you...

Thank you, I know that... I heard, yes. You heard why I'm here. How are you, first of all? How are you guys? Yeah, I'm good. Are these your kids? Yeah.

Two of them? Yeah, two of them. DA's little boys stare up at me. They're curious and shy. They hardly ever meet new people. I'm going to do something first. I'm going to show new people. I'm going to do something first. I'm going to show you something. I'm going to sit down next to you.

I have some photos. And I wanted you to take a look, please. So this is Zulman. And I understand that you knew his mum. Yeah, but this is... this is recent? No, it's not recent. It was taken three years ago. Three, four years ago. I understand that you knew his mother. Yeah, we met back in Raqqa.

Raqqa was the de facto capital of the Islamic State group in Syria. You met in Raqqa? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She had two kids. She had Salman and she had another daughter. She had a daughter? Yeah, she had a daughter. A Salman and a daughter?

Yeah. She was really small last time I seen. Right. I've heard this before, that Aisha had a second child with a second husband after Haroon, Ash's son, was killed. Young widows were expected to remarry after a short period of mourning. I don't know much about Aisha's second husband,

other than they had a daughter together, and like Haroon, that he'd also been killed. How did you meet Aisha? You said you knew her in Raqqa. I met her through a friend. I met her through her best friend, another Canadian. That's how we met. I used to go visit her, and they were living together. A couple of times she slept over at my place,

I slept over at their place, you know? Then she got married. To Haroon? Yeah. And then from there, I didn't see her that much, but when I see her at occasions and stuff, just, I think it's all the Canadians kind of found each other somehow, some way.

All the Canadians found each other. Yeah, she was great. They were both great. Awesome, yeah. Such great girls. They're so young and just really very, very hospitable, very friendly, very kind. Did you live in the Madhafa together?

No, no, no, no, no. I came already married, so I didn't have to live in Madhafa because they came single. Her and her best friend, they came single, so they had to live in a Madhafa. A Madhafa is where single women were forced to live under IS rule until they were matched with a husband. Women I've spoken to say they were miserable places, guarded by women who enforced IS's strict rules. Did she ever say why she felt the need to come over?

Did you ever talk about why you both came over? To Syria? Yeah. We probably did, but it was forever ago. I'm not sure. We probably did. We must have. That was usually what you talk about when you meet someone, you know, how you come, why you come, like this. But I don't remember exactly.

Yeah, it was a long time ago. In my years of reporting on IS, I've found that most women don't want to talk about why or how they got here. If you dig, you'll find everyone's got their own story. Some were victims of domestic abuse. Some were duped or trafficked. Some came willingly as adventure seekers. Some followed their husbands and children. Some were duped or trafficked. Some came willingly as adventure seekers. Some followed their husbands and children.

Some were children themselves. And then, of course, there were all those women who were committed, hardcore adherents to the IS ideology. What can you tell me about Aisha then? I mean, how old was she? Do you know roughly? I think she came when she was 18, 19. Right. Yeah, around this age.

She was so outgoing. So, so outgoing. She made everyone feel so welcome. She loved to chat. She was in such a great mood. She was always in a great mood. You'll never know something's upsetting her. You know, she was a very good girl.

Yeah, very good, very good. It's so sad that it must have been hard. I know at the end everyone struggled. You know, I know she struggled a lot in the end. Everyone was struggling. When D.A. says at the end, she means the dying days of the caliphate, when she and Aisha and other IS families were on the run. From village to village, as coalition forces advanced,

they ended up in a village called Bagus. My last conversation with her was she wanted to give a plate of food. I heard that she was struggling, you know, and she knew we had another... Another girl was staying with me, and she knew that she had nothing. She gave me the plate of food, said, please give to so-and-so. Because she knew we were together. So I gave it to her and I said, this is from Aisha.

And she was just in tears and she was so happy. And that was the end I saw her. And that was the last time even she saw her. When did you leave Bungie's? Yeah, we left in February. February. And she stayed? She... Yeah, I left in the beginning of Bagus. The beginning. Yeah, we left in the beginning.

After DA left, things in Bagus got even more intense. Coalition forces bombarded the village, flattening much of it. So when I came, there wasn't much people. Then when a whole group of people came out, I asked about her. They said that they heard that she was killed. And then after that, everyone that came out and bagels were finished. Who's him?

No one's seen her since. Only two kids. Okay, after. OK, after. Who's looking? Who's who? Is it her family or the in-laws that are... It's her father-in-law in Britain. Her father-in-law, OK. Who's pushing for...

He wants to know what's happened to his grandson. Yeah, I understand. Because he's heard reports of Aisha being killed. But he wants to know for certain if his grandson is dead. But then we will find out and we will try our best to provide some answers to him. Is this based on, did he have news that he's still alive or he's in the camp? No, he hasn't got news of anything.

That's the issue. Okay, okay. He just wants confirmation. Yeah, he wants to know, could he be alive? That's why we're trying to get as much help as possible. The thing is, how it works is a lot of people who they're like missing. You just presume that they're killed because no one has seen them.

No one has seen them or their kids, right? So maybe no one has seen the body, but it's just, you can only assume that they're killed because they didn't come out and no one has seen them. You know, Al-Hol is, it's big, but it's not that big where you can go in hiding or no one can see you for years. You know what I mean? It just doesn't work like that.

For Aisha, I can understand. And Aisha, she knows us. You know, she won't hide from me or any of her friends. You know, we're all in this together. We're all struggling here together. There's no reason. Like, I will assume that if she's out here, she'll want to go back to her country,

just like all of us. You know what I mean? But what about her children, if by any chance one of the children survived? Because we're seeing that. We're seeing loads of orphans. Yeah, yeah, but it would have, it would have came out to us that Selman is still alive. You know what I mean?

So I would think that they would come forward with Selman or the daughter and say, can you help us? She wants, you know, we need her to, we need them to get back to their family. It all sounds credible, what DA's telling me. If Salman had made it to the camps, alone or with another family, word would have got around. But I also know that sometimes women have hidden orphans

rather than handing them over to authorities. And because I know nothing about this woman, where her allegiances lie, it's hard to let go of the possibility Salman has survived. Where were you living? Some house, I guess. In a house in Baghouz, right. On your own with your kids? Yeah, with a bunch of other people. Right. Were you widowed by this time? No, no.

You're not widowed? No. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I was just wondering. So you were there with your entire family? Yeah,

just with my kids. And your husband? Was he with you? No, we were divorced a long time ago. Oh, so you divorced? Yeah, I was single.

Right, okay. The whole time, yeah. So just me and my kids and a whole bunch of people just trying to survive. How old are your kids? Seven and five. Right, okay. Just tell me how you travelled. You said you were a single woman.

Just were you on your own then? You had your children in the markets area? Yeah, yeah, we had them. So you were single at that point? You had your children in the Moroccan Syria? Yeah, yeah. So you were single at that point. You divorced in Canada? Can we just stick to the camp questions? Okay. My lawyer advised not to speak about anything prior.

Right, okay. Yeah. You can stick to the camp. You can stick to speaking about Aisha and like this. All right. So what is the situation in the camp now for you? I mean, it's, what's daily life here like?

Just, I don't know, everything, it seems so routine. Everybody do the same thing. You just cook and clean and we're just waiting. We're just waiting to get out. And what about your boys?

Are they going to school? Yeah, yeah, they go. They go. You guys, you like your school? Yeah. Yeah. And what about their dad? Is he alive?

His dad? Yeah. Yeah, he's around. Okay. Okay. He's in detention? Yeah, he's in prison. Is he Canadian too?

No, no, he's not Canadian. What nationality is he, if you don't mind sharing? Not really. You've been really, really helpful. Oh, and I hope so. Can I leave these photos with you? Yeah, you can.

Or should I leave you one? Yeah. Do you not recognise them? There's something else I want to run by her. Back in London, Ash told me he and his family had received a mysterious message shortly after they lost contact with Aisha and Salman. Apparently Aisha's family had received a similar message too. I'm just trying to work out, someone contacted her family to say that Aisha had died and so had her children.

So I'm just trying to work out who, can you imagine who that person would have been? Would have been somebody in Baguz. The thing is, I might have an idea maybe who it was, but I don't, this person never told me. If it's this person who told me about Aisha, she didn't say I seen the body. No one I know said I seen her and her children killed. What did they say? That we heard.

We heard Aisha and her kids got killed. I don't know anybody who said I seen Aisha and her children or I was with them when they got killed. Or I saw where they were living and it got bombed. Yeah, I don't know anybody who said I seen Aisha and her children, or I was with them when they got killed. Or I saw where they were living and it got bombed. Yeah, I don't know. Right. Is anybody in the camp who knew Aisha apart from you? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe so. There is. There is? Would you be able to introduce us to... Do you mind if I have to speak to them first? Of course, of course. Do you think you could ask while we're still here?

We'll be here for another hour. OK. Thank you. No problem. Thank you so much. Do you want to stay here and I come back? We can come back in about one hour. OK.

Come back in one hour. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The island of Newfoundland keeps its secrets close, shrouds them in mystery. But once in a while, the fog is lifted, the truth comes out. I get a feeling there's something going on here. My whole body was shaking. You go to bed believing that you're a certain person one night, and then all of a sudden

the next day, everything that you've known is not true. This is not the life that I should have lived. I'm Luke Quinton from CBC. This is Come By Chance, available now. Uncover from CBC Podcasts brings you award-winning investigations year-round. But if you want to listen ahead, all episodes of Bloodlines are available right now. Binge listen to the entire series by searching Bloodlines wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free by subscribing to the CBC True Crime channel on Apple Podcasts. Uncover the best in true crime. I think now it's time for us to see Nicole because we are running out of time

So many of the kids in this place have grandparents, aunties, uncles who are desperate to bring them home like Charlene, the nurse from West London Her grandkids and daughter Nicole have been stuck in camps like this since 2019. When I was here a couple of years ago, Nicole did a TV interview with me. OK. Is there a specific way I should sit or just...

Feel comfortable. Are you... Do you... Are you... When I first spoke with her, her mum Charlene was trying to get Nicole and her children back to the UK. But the British government was against it. They saw women who'd travelled to live under IS as a security risk. What I really remember about that visit, though, were Nicole's kids. I like learning something new. Like, say in school they teach us something else to do, like a paper.

Especially her eldest. And I like learning, like, different things, like, different languages. And, like, when you learn more things, your brain comes better. And all these kind of things. I want to be smart when I grow up. She was 12 at the time, and she wanted a future for herself. And she was clearly bright. I've thought a lot about what kind of life she's going to have, what kind of future. Now two years on, I still remember the weight in Nicole's tent.

As I approach it, I recognise her eldest daughter, doing housework. She's grown so much, and when I ask her to find her mum for me, it's clear by the way she sighs she's now a full-on teenager. We've just gone to Nicole's tent. She's not there. We bumped into her eldest daughter, who's gone to call her, she's apparently at a sewing class and so we'll just wait here yeah, yeah

we're good, we're good how's everything? I'm good, I'm good I'm really good you remember him, right? yes, I remember him, of course I remember you good to see you just on our own I'm good, I'm good. I'm really good. You remember Juan? Yes, I remember him. Of course I remember you. Good to see you.

We've just done our own. OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Nicole asks me not to record our conversation, which I'm fine with. And she's fine talking to me, as long as it's off the record. We chat for nearly half an hour. She's clearly wary of more press coverage, but she tells me we can chat again later this week.

I'll see you once I've seen the car. OK, let's go to the orphanage. And to the third children. Yeah. We're walking to the orphanage now. So this is a gated compound within the camp. Oh, there's quite a lot of kids here. Mainly girls. They look like they're 9 or 10.

There's a group of kids, maybe 20 or 30 of them. A few of them have visible injuries, missing limbs, wounds from shrapnel. All of them have injuries you can't see. Their parents are either dead or captured.

Security is extra tied around the compound, and journalists aren't allowed inside. I've spent two years pleading with Save the Children officials to make it even this far, to the gates of the facility. children officials to make it even this far, to the gates of the facility. Somebody from the ICC is coming to see us. Hello, pleased to meet you. So we have some photos.

There is a baby that we're looking for, a little child. He was last seen in Baghouz. And his mother died. He was last seen alive in 2019 in Bagous. His mother is dead, but his grandfather wants to know what happened to him. She flicks through the photos of Salman. I look at her face for a glimmer of recognition. The photos are of a toddler.

If Salman were alive now, he'd be seven years old. So, no, he's never been in our centre and I haven't seen anyone in the class. I wish I could do more, but we don't have that clip. OK, thank you for looking. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. I always knew it was a long shot. Still, I'm gutted. For now, it's time to go back to D.A.'s tent.

She says, film me. Oh, she wants to be filmed. I'm not sure her mum would be that happy. No. But quite a few kids coming up to us, wanting to talk. Kids here are young. really super young, aren't they? It's very rare to see a kid over nine or ten years old.

Is it that tent? Yeah, it is that tent. No, no, no worries. You tidy up. Did you find everybody that you're looking for? No, we haven't found everybody. That's why we've come back to you. Yeah, yeah. To see, just to catch up with what you've managed to do in the last 30 minutes. Yeah. OK, I can come up.

Hello. So I was researching. DA tells me she's managed to find some women who knew Aisha, but they aren't too keen on talking to us. Maybe off camera. They can help us. She heads off and returns with a couple of women. I try to introduce myself and tell them about my search for Salman.

It's clear straight away they don't like me. They cut me off and tell me point blank they don't like journalists. And then they walk away, but DA stops them. She holds them by the sleeves of their abayas and pleads with them to talk to me. For Salman's grandfather, for Ash. More women gather around me. One of them demands I empty my pockets. They want to make sure I'm not wearing a wire. And as I turn out my pockets, I see Juwan nearby, watching all this play out.

I can see Poonam in the middle of the four women chatting to them about baby Selman. Poonam is asking them about more details where last they've seen baby Selman. More women approaching them and talking.

There's a woman who just came to the group. It seems like she's passing some details about Aisha and what happened in Baghouz. Pranam is showing now this woman that just came, Baby Salman's picture. OK, so I'm just going to go over what some of the women said. So you saw five women around me. After a while, I lost count because so many of them were shouting at me.

Two of them, and they were two British women. One of them said that she was a very good friend of Aisha. And she said that she lived next door to her, in the area before Bagus. And she said that she heard that where Aisha was living afterwards was hit by an airstrike and that she and her children did not survive. I put it to her that there were children who survived

when their parents didn't. And she said in that area, somebody would have seen the children. One was six months old, about six months old, the little girl. Salman was about almost three. And they all recognised his photo. And they said that if he had survived, or was roaming anywhere,

they would have seen him. Somebody would have seen him somebody would have seen him so they are certain that that is where he that he died with them and then the other girl also from Britain she says she's from Essex she said to me that she had heard Aisha had died as well. And she'd heard it from other people. And they all knew her. Our time's up. Just before we're escorted out of the camp, I walk over to DA. You were with me when these ladies were talking.

You all knew each other as a group and you're clearly friends and they're clearly suspicious of us. They don't want me to record. They don't want their voices to be recognised. It's quite frowned upon here to speak to journalists like this you know what I mean. I've spoken to other people while you were gone and they said that the same... I guess it kind of confirmed what she said, that it was a house with other women, and they knew these women too. There are other women that got killed, there are other friends,

and they said they knew that Aisha was in this house. When the house got bombed, that same day they got to know that this house got bombed and who got killed. OK, if you find out any more, we'll be back later on in the week. Can we check in and say hi? You've been really helpful. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. We've just come back from having dinner. We just went to a little cafe nearby where it's very, very small and everyone was watching the World Cup,

all the guys in there, and I think I was the only woman. I'm just reflecting on a few things that happened today. Increasingly it looks as if when I see Ash it's going to be news that isn't what he wants to hear. I think he's been living in hope for a long time. He was holding on to hope that baby Salman remained alive and that he may have, like so many children, survived without their parents

and been picked up by another family. That seems increasingly unlikely. We are still going to follow up a couple of leads. I want to just make sure that I've looked everywhere that I possibly can. Everyone today seems sure Salman didn't survive. But I need more before I can go back to his grandfather, Ash. Especially after a conversation I had tonight with someone who knows the camps well. I told him the news we'd received in Al Raj from the women,

from Deye and her friends there. And he then said, don't trust anything they say. Exhaust your search and carry on. Words to the effect that carry on looking yourself. If there is a child that they have rescued, they are not going to tell you. And then I hear something else. It's not much more than a rumour, really.

And it's about DA. It was clear she didn't want me asking about her past. If there's anything to the tip I just got, she's got one hell of a good reason for that. Next time on Bloodlines. So, DA, I'm going to ask you something, and it's up to you how you answer. Oh, you don't have to. I didn't want it out.

I didn't want that association at all. At, at, at all. None whatsoever. So I wanted people to judge me for me, not have it associated with him and what he did. I just didn't want anything to do with it. You've been listening to Bloodlines from BBC Sounds and CBC Podcasts. The series concept and reporting by me, Poonam Taneja. It's written and produced by Fiona Woods and Alina Ghosh.

Our investigations producer is Juwan Abdi and our contributing producer is Michelle Shepherd. Fahad Fattah is our field producer. Our sound designer is Julia Whitman. Original score by Phil Channel. Emily Connell is a digital coordinating producer for CBC Podcasts and Caroline McAvoy is a digital producer for BBC Sounds. Our senior producer and story editor is Damon Fairless for CBC Podcasts. Executive editor

for BBC Sounds is James Cook. The executive producers of CBC Podcasts are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is a senior manager of CBC Podcasts, and Arv Noorani is a director. Thank you for listening to Bloodlines.