6 Minute English / Children in warzones

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

And I'm Becca.

Now, today, we re going to be talking about the very serious topic of war and how it affects children.

Some of the discussions you hear will mention death and trauma. We won t go into detail, but if you think you feel may uncomfortable, you can check the transcript for this episode before listening to it on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Yes. And remember, you'll find all this episode's vocabulary, along with a free worksheet, and many other 6 Minute English episodes on our website. Again, that s bbclearningenglish.com.

The most recent figure from 2024 says that 520 million children are living in conflict zones. That's about one in every five children worldwide.

In this episode, we'll hear from Fergal Keane on the BBC World Service Programme The Global Story. Fergal is a BBC reporter known best for reporting from war zones around the world and, as a result, developed PTSD, a type of stress disorder. We'll be finding out what PTSD stands for at the end of the programme.

Now, in the clips we ll hear journalist Asma Khalid asks Fergal Keane about his own experience with childhood trauma. Fergal grew up in a home with an alcoholic father. Asma wanted to know how his own trauma affected his reporting on the experiences of children in warzones:

I was hyper-vigilant from the very earliest age, obviously watching out, you know, am I under threat, is there a danger to me here?