Airdate: Inside Cyprus

Seven screens unique travel special with Ben Fogle, Inside Cyprus on Wednesday week.

This was produced for Channel 5 in the UK. Seven has previously screened Fogle’s Inside Chernobyl doco.

Ben Fogle heads to Cyprus, deviating from the tourist trail. He has unique access to the ‘Buffer Zone’, a no-man’s land which cuts right through the middle of the island. The Turkish Cypriot community in the North, and the Greek Cypriot community in the South have been separated since civil war and an illegal invasion divided them almost 50 years ago. This left a third of the population displaced, essentially making them refugees overnight.

Ben spends a week with the UN peacekeeping mission who patrol the 230 square mile Buffer Zone to keep the two warring sides apart. Ben is on a mission to understand more about the so-called ‘Cyprus problem’ and visits the ghost towns left behind. He learns how criminal gangs profit from the division, and hears the stories of people on both sides of the divide whose lives have been changed forever.

7:30pm Wednesday March 22 on Seven.