welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: hurricane irma devastates the islands of the eastern caribbean. barbuda and st martin pick up the pieces. irma heads for haiti and then florida, where mass evacuations are ordered. an unfolding humanitarian disaster — families flee myanmar as buddhists target rohingya muslim villages. and we bring you a special report on what's being called the nightmarish conditions in a detention camp for refugees in libya. hello. hurricane irma, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the atlantic, is sweeping across the eastern caribbean with devastating force.

at least ten people have died, and hundreds of buildings have been flattened or flooded. deaths are reported in the us and british virgin islands, and anguilla. haiti and the turks and caicos islands are now making frantic preparations. the islands of barbuda and st martin were the first to feel the full force of the winds and storm surge. then puerto rico, cuba and florida still lie ahead. with phone lines down, roads destroyed by flooding, airports damaged, it's difficult to communicate and to get aid in. our correspondent laura bicker sent this report from puerto rico. hurricane irma, a storm the size of france, has carved a destructive path through the caribbean. in puerto rico, three people were killed as winds battered the island. as daylight came and the clear—out began, most felt lucky to have survived such a terrifying storm. i pray god don't come here no more! this family told me they felt blessed to be alive and that the only damage

was a downed power line and fallen trees in their street. they've kept eight—month—old aaron safe. there is a collective sigh of relief in puerto rico. there is work to be done. up to 30ft waves threw up debris and downed trees. but when it comes to that catastrophic eye of the hurricane, that only skirted this island, unlike others in the caribbean. on the tiny island of barbuda, barely a building was left untouched. hundreds of families now find themselves homeless. my house, i lose my home. i lose my shop. also my vehicle. everything's damaged. and right now, i don't have nowhere to go to sleep. we had cars flying over our heads. we had containers, 40ft containers, flying left and right, and the story that you are getting from most of the residents here is that the eye

of the storm came just in time. persons were literally tying themselves to their roofs with ropes to keep them down. barbuda's prime minister said the island was now barely habitable. what i saw was heart—wrenching. i mean, absolutely devastating. i would say that about 95% of the properties would have suffered some level of damage. in neighbouring st martin, the full force of the hurricane‘s eye was caught on camera. winds of 185 mph hammered the island. more than 70,000 people live in this area, which is made of dutch and french territories. shipping containers were tossed around like lego bricks. moored boats were smashed in the harbour and there

are warnings that the death toll is likely to rise. france has sent three emergency teams to help with the clear—up and has already set up a reconstruction fund. in the british territory of anguilla, there was criticism from residents to the uk response to the hurricane. it was labelled "pathetic" and "disgraceful". a british task force is now on its way there, including the royal marines and army engineers, although it could take two weeks for them to get there. efforts are also under way to try to get supplies to the island of st ba rts. the french government say their priority is making sure people have food and drinking water. and the british virgin islands, a sought—after holiday destination, is the latest place to be pummelled. the water is going up. a tropical paradise, transformed. it literally went up and then sat there. hurricane irma is not finished. she has maintained her wind speeds

and is barrelling towards another british territory, the low—lying turks & caicos islands. the us sunshine state of florida will be next in her sights. they are nervous after watching others endure her wrath. laura bicker, bbc news, puerto rico. more than half a million people have been ordered to leave their homes in florida. in a moment aleem maqbool will have the latest from miami airport but first here's will grant in havana on cuba's preparation. these are the final few hours of calm in cuba before the arrival of hurricane irma, and little by little, cubans are getting ready for its landfall on the eastern tip of the island. for several days, cubans have been watching this huge storm approached the island with some trepidation. they have seen the destruction that's been wrought elsewhere in the caribbean, and have been very nervous for their own well—being. gradually, of course, they have been getting supplies of clean drinking water. they have been perhaps getting fuel in order to run generators.

they have been boarding up their homes as well. most of the damage, if it takes place, is likely to happen along the northern coastline. there is an evacuation order for much of that, which is currently being carried out by the government. of course, that is also where most tourists go. it is where the major resorts in cuba are, and the cuban government, supported by a number of embassies from around the world, is trying to get visitors back to cities like this one where the infrastructure is a little better. cubans, though, will be hunkering down overnight and just hoping that hurricane irma is kinder here than she was elsewhere in the caribbean. tens of thousands of people in this part of florida have been issued evacuation orders so you can imagine people trying to scramble onto flights before the hurricane hits.

we've seen a lot of tourists actually as well, some of whom have been caught in limbo because they were meant to have been here in florida into the next week or so but on the one hand they're being told by their hotels they have to evacuate and then they come here and there told there aren't any seats on flights back to the uk for example. so some people are paying an awful lot of money for first class seats because they're the only ones left. for the rest of them there aren't any seats available at all so a lot of very anxious tourists stuck here. they don't know what the coming days are going to bring, they don't know what they're going to do, but of course that goes for a lot of people across this state who are being told to prepare for irma hitting on sunday. and you can get all the latest updates on hurricane irma including

a map showing when its predicted to make landfall and where on our website. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. pope francis has urged colombians to set aside vengeance as they come to terms with a peace deal signed last year with farc rebels. he was speaking to huge crowds in bogota on the first full day of his visit to the country, the first by a pope in over three decades. a son of the philippine president has denied involvement in a multi—million dollar drug smuggling operation. paolo duterte told a senate hearing the allegations against him were baseless, although he refused to answer questions. his father, president rodrigo duterte, launched a violent campaign against drug crime last year and has promised to resign if any family members are involved in the trade. china has expressed shock after an indian army chief said his country should be prepared for all—out war with both china and pakistan.

the comments come just days after the end of a ten—week standoff with the chinese army in the himalayas. the chinese foreign ministry says a healthy and stable relationship is in the interests of both countries. this week we've been reporting from bangladesh, where more than 160,000 rohingya muslims have fled the violence in the mainly buddhist neighbouring country of myanmar. authorities there blame rohingya militants for provoking the crisis by attacking police stations. justin rowlatt has been to a refugee camp in teknaf near the border. they arrive barefoot, their shoes lost in the mud on the long journey here. this is an exodus on a truly massive scale. rohingya muslims have been pouring into bangladesh from myanmar. they say the military and local buddhists are destroying their villages after rohingya militants attacked police posts

two weeks ago. the current estimate is that 164,000 have crossed over, but the truth is no—one knows for certain how many have come. so we've justjoined this kind of river of humanity, because we've been told a refugee camp has sort of erupted in the field here, and thousands and thousands of people have made camp there. a un official was told there were 15,000 people here. this is what she found. she told the bbc she couldn't say how many refugees have sought shelter here. perhaps as many as 100,000. everyone needs food, everyone needs water. and everyone has a horrific story to tell. translation: my three sons were taken. i don't know where they are.

i have nothing to eat. please give me something. there are horrific images too. villages burning, allegedly torched by soldiers from the myanmar army. translation: lots, lots, lots of people died. this is my village. first they set it on fire, and then they shot us from helicopters and from the ground. mr shafiq saw some appalling scenes on his long trek. bodies floating in the river, rohingya refugees drowned in their search for safety, he says. and then the final hurdle — the barbed wire fence that marks the border with bangladesh. the bbc cannot verify any of this footage, but the stories the refugees tell are remarkably similar. and still they keep on coming. they have been driven from their homes into this, into what is a rapidly escalating humanitarian disaster. justin rowlatt, bbc news, teknaf.

stay with us on bbc news. still to come: all aboard the high—speed express. meet the train passengers with a front—row seat to an unusual performance. freedom itself was attacked this morning, and freedom will be defended. the united states will hunt down and punish those responsible. bishop tutu now becomes spiritual leader of 100,000 anglicans, here — of the blacks in soweto township, as well as the whites, in their rich suburbs. we say to you today, in a loud and a clear voice,

enough of blood and tears — enough! the difficult decision we reached together was one that required great and exceptional courage. it is an exodus of up to 60,000 people, caused by the uneven pace of political change in eastern europe. iam free! this is bbc news. the latest headlines: hurricane irma hits and leaves a trail of devastation in the eastern caribbean islands. at least ten people are dead. i spoke just now to alison strand, originally from the english midlands, who lives in anguilla. her house, with her and herfamily inside, was destroyed around them.

my house, many houses here. i lost my roof completely. the garden‘s now in the house. a lot of people are in a similar situation. there's no power on the island. the communications company are doing their best have basic communication. people are trying to clear the roads here so we can get access to basic provisions. the navy did arrive today. there have been helicopters in the air dropping supplies to the hospital. allison, i know you had to live through this, you're probably still living through it, but can you take us through it? you're hunkered down in your house, presumably you're not seeing much because you're either behind shutters or the windows are boarded up. what are you hearing and what are you feeling as a storm like this gets?

at 2am the eye of the storm hit us. we thought that was quite a powerful force but it kept churning and churning and churning and getting stronger and stronger. the noise was just phenomenal. you could hear your house being ripped apart. you could hear the waves beating against the side of the house. we could hear the trees falling. it was such a force that most people... hurricane shutters were broken by all the flying debris and the pressure from this storm was something that's never been experienced before. what actually happened to most people's houses, there was such a buildup of pressure that they sort of exploded. the hurricane shutters came off, the windows exploded and furniture was chucked out of people's houses. most houses i've seen are empty of any kind of furnishings. it's just strewn all the around the island. we thought at 4am we had the worst of it but it's just kept getting stronger and stronger and by 6am that's when we lost our roof. and the noise of that was

obviously quite intense. we lost a lot of our hurricane shutters. we were bailing outjust trying to keep the kids warm and safe. you had pretty much your whole family there. how do the people hang on with all that going on, allison? hope! we were in the bath with a mattress above us, that's how we managed to keep safe and dry. i think a lot of people were in a similar situation. we've seen cars that have been picked up and thrown through the house. we're very grateful that we came out of this alive and that there's been very minimal loss of

life on the island. allison, what's left now? we've heard from some people that there's no petrol pumps left so they can't get fuel for generators so there's no power, maybe no power for weeks or months? we don't think we will have power on the island for months. it certainly won't be weeks. there is a general lack of generators on the island anyway. there is no fuel. water will start to run out very shortly, so we're really reliant on any help that can come. i know when hurricane lewis hit the island we had a lot of support from the islands around us, but of course those islands have also been hit. all we can really hope is we've got the navy here now and we have seen helicopters in the air dropping off supplies, we hope that continues, we hope we can get generators sent to the island.

people are obviously in desperate need of power. we're going to be needing water too, provisions will start to run out. yes, we are in for the long haul. bbc news has witnessed around a thousand, mostly african migrants, held in detention in libya in inhumane conditions. the medical charity doctors without borders says migrants and refugees who want to cross the mediterranean to italy are being detained in "nightmarish" conditions. the bbc‘s orla guerin has gained rare access to the main detention centre in tripoli. cramped together in punishing heat.

the migrants europe doesn't want. trapped in libya, a country in chaos, that doesn't want them either. most travelled from sub saharan africa. some were stopped at sea, others on dry land. now they are in triq al sika, the largest detention centre in tripoli. we were given unfettered access to those suffering here. ijust need to go back home. you understand ? because here, it is like, you know, in hell. it is like in hell for me. that's how i feel. well, this is the reality for those being held in detention in libya. the men here have asked us to show these conditions. they are very anxious for all of this to be seen. this is prison by any other name. the only hope of release for these men is to be deported back to their home countries, but that can take time to arrange. some of those here have been languishing in this centre for six months.

it's really hard and they close the door, so it really gets that people can't breathe well. people faint sometimes. it's pretty hot in here. my guide, hennessy, is 18 and from south sudan but for three years, he was a london schoolboy while his father worked in the uk. hennessy paid traffickers to get back to london but was kidnapped by an armed gang in libya. he escaped by leaping from a moving truck. the time we jumped off, there was a chad man, an old chad man. he was shot, so blood went all over my t—shirt so i thought i was shot as well. i was so scared. i just ran away. grim as things are here, hennessy says conditions were far worse in another detention centre where there were daily beatings by the guards. if people make noise, or if people rush for food, you get beaten.

if people want to use the bathroom, or if people want to drink water, theyjust make you lie down on your stomach, the whole jail, and everyone gets about five, five. everyone. everyone gets beaten? everyone gets beaten. and that's only one risk on the migrant trail through libya. the men are pawns, to be bought and sold by militias. some forced into slave labour. it was horrible, horrible. emmanuel was beaten by a gang linked to the traffickers. but what pained him most is what he heard them do to two teenage girls. they went into the second room and they raped the girls. they raped two girls, yeah. and we couldn't do anything because we didn't have anything to defend ourselves with. staff here call them broken men, starved of hope and nourishment. for breakfast, just bread and butter. officials tell us they have no funds to pay food suppliers so they rely on donations.

and among those going hungry, women and children, held in a separate section. sola is just three months old. he was at the mercy of the mediterranean when a smuggler‘s boat broke down. "police arrested us", said his mother, wasila. "since then, we have been in five prisons". outside, the latest arrivals, weary, barefoot, turned around at sea by the coastguard. young dreams dashed. instead of a new life in europe, returned to the nightmare of libya. the green paint daubed on by their traffickers,

proof they paid their fare. human beings, branded like cattle let's go to germany now, and a novel kind of theatrical production. there's no stage, no curtains, no orchestra. but there is an audience. the passengers on board this train may have seen something a little unusual when they looked out the window. men on ladders saluting as they passed. trees running — yes, running — in the field. another tree apparently on fire. all this is part of a theatrical show taking place trackside in lower saxony. it's called moving countryside — around 50 performances carried out as a passenger train flies by. real high—speed theatre. translation: you go past

and you only have maybe five seconds to see anything, but the journey is 23 minutes and that is a perfect length of time. the whole stretch lends itself to being a stage. it is a short film, so it is not that long. rather unfortunately, there is still a0 kilometres worth of stage, so it is big. about 1000 volunteers, including two local mayors, took part. the various productions involved a fake great white shark, a high—altitude cyclist, and a fleet of old east german trams. the whole thing designed to bring the city and the countryside together, and create a bridge between their sometimes different lifestyles. translation: it was great fun. i admire the actors, because they were determined to stage everything right. they gave us alljoy. there were some spectacular things which i liked very much.

well done. for now, this is a one—off performance. but it certainly made the commute a little more interesting. and before we go, let me show you these pictures of prince george on his first day at school here in england. the 11—year—old arrived wearing regulation issue school jumper and navy shorts. he and his dad were met in the playground by a teacher. his mum, the duchess of cambridge, now pregnant with the couple's third child, is suffering from severe morning sickness. he's attending a preparatory school in london that costs more than $23,000 a year. he'll be known as george cambridge. just briefly, that main story, hurricane irma has left a swathe of destruction as it sweeps across the eastern caribbean. it has already destroyed almost all buildings on barbuda. deaths have been reported on the virgin islands and in anguilla. thank you for watching.

hello. we're keeping our eye on three hurricanes in the caribbean. hurricanejose hot on the heels of hurricane irma, not quite as strong as irma, but still the potential for damaging winds for the northern leeward islands by the weekend. hurricane irma is heading turks and caicos, heading through cuba on friday, eventually florida by the weekend and hurricane katia in the gulf of mexico more a rain maker, with a lot of damaging wind. back home, it's somewhat quieter over here, but still an unsettled end to the week, thanks to this area of low pressure driving the weather. and there'll be strong winds at times particularly across southern coastal counties and the north—west of scotland and northern ireland as well. here, there'll be some showers from the word go. not quite so many showers here first thing tomorrow across the eastern side of scotland, maybe some sunshine coming through, but always a lot of cloud. and showers never too far away across northern england. there'll be some spells of sunshine coming through across northern parts of wales, but again there'll be some showers here through the day.

and the showers already getting going across south—west england, and across southern coastal counties of england. they will start to become a little bit more frequent, and the rain more persistent. the showers merging, really, to give a longer spell of rain. so it's quite an unsettled feel to the end of the week. for many northern parts of england, parts of scotland and northern ireland, it's a day, really, of sunshine and showers. but for wales, southern and central parts of england, those showers, as i mentioned, becoming more frequent, and merging together for a longer spell of rain. you could well even catch a rumble of thunder during the afternoon. so temperatures no great shakes, really, somewhere between 16 and 19 celsius for most. there'll be further heavy showers, longer spells of rain around tomorrow evening. slowly, we start to lose some of the energy, but there will be more showers around overnight, so nowhere reliably dry. but there should be some lengthier clear spells in between the showers. a slightly fresher night, lows of 11 or 12 celsius. but, for most, still in double figures. and it's still a fairly

unsettled weekend. sunshine and showers i think should just about cover it for saturday. the emphasis more on dry weather and not quite as many showers. but again, nowhere reliably dry, and the temperatures still not much higher than 18 or 19 celsius. and we do it all again on sunday. many places should get off to a reasonably dry start, but then we look to the north—west, something unsettled is happening here — strengthening winds, and spells of rain, light to very heavy, sweeping across the country. so for the weekend here, yes, wet at times, rather cool and quite windy as well. goodbye. this is bbc news. the headlines: hurricane irma has left a swathe of destruction as it sweeps across the eastern caribbean. it's already destroyed almost all buildings on barbuda. deaths are reported in the us and british virgin islands, and anguilla. haiti and the turks and caicos islands are now making frantic preparations. storm surges and ferocious winds are expected. more than 160,000 rohingya muslims have now fled violence in myanmar. the exodus across the border

into bangladesh was sparked by a crackdown by burmese security forces. the authorities there have blamed rohingya militants for provoking the crisis by attacking police stations. bbc news has witnessed around 1,000 mostly african migrants being held in detention in libya in inhumane conditions. medical charity doctors without borders says migrants wanting to cross the mediterranean to italy are being detained in what it's calling nightmarish conditions. now on bbc news it's hardtalk with stephen sackur.