The Shepherd and the bomb

The little girl in the hospital bed has no future. She is blind, she cannot walk or stand up. All se has left is her swallowing reflex. The girl is a victim of what doctors call the “ecological environment” near the town of Semipalatinsk in the Muslim Soviet Republic Kasaksthan. In this area the Soviet Army secretly tested its nuclear weapons. The local population did not know what was going on. But now the truth is beginning to surface: the shepherds and farmers of the regions were used as human guinea-pigs in experiments with radioactivity. This programme explores the well-kept secret and its tragic consequences: radiation sickness, congenitally deformed children and increased frequency of cancer.