bbc news arabic goes undercover, investigating for the first time a hidden world of spiritual healers who sexually exploit... ..assault. .. ..or abuse women who seek their help in morocco and sudan.

when i was little, my grandmother would recite the koran to me as i went to sleep. she called that ruqya and it made me feel blessed. this practice has become really popular, where healers recite the koran in order to solve problems by expelling evil spirits. but there is a darker side to this —

exploiting vulnerable women. music plays. bushra is a women's rights activist. she has created this safe space for girls striving to be footballers. her activism today springs from an injustice she has been living with for 20 years. when bushra was 16, she started having blinding headaches. her parents brought a spiritual healer to see her.

the healer remained a respected member of the community until he died. bushra never told herfamily and is not sure how they would react if she revealed it now.

we spent months speaking to other women, ngos, courts and lawyers, gathering and verifying stories of abuse.

in the first investigation of its kind, in morocco we spoke to 35 women who accused 25 spiritual healers of assault, rape or manipulating them into sex. this woman was advised to see a healer for her depression. we meet in secret. she says if her family knew what happened to her, they would kill her.

these stories are not only in morocco. i have heard harrowing accounts of abuse in many other countries. sudan stood out. in private online groups, i found an outpouring of stories,

but i wanted to know more about popular healers in sudan. healing is a business here, too, but a very different one. chanting. wow.

hundreds of people come here every week to be cured publicly in the open. like morocco, the business is unregulated and it is in private healing sessions where women can be sexually exploited.

once again, we had to carry out our own research to find out how common the abuse is.

50 women we spoke to in sudan told us about a0 healers who had harassed, assaulted, raped them, or manipulated them into sex. two journalists agreed to go undercover for us. we are hiding their identities for their safety.

three women told us they were approached in this cafe and recommended they visit a healer called sheikh haytham. he said they would remain cursed unless they had sex with him. phone rings. ourjournalist amal calls him, posing as a client.

he tells her, she must pay him the equivalent of 400 us dollars to be cured. we need to find out where he is so we can question him about his behaviour.

there are very few places that women exploited by healers can go to for help. sheika fatima's is one of them. we have been given unique access to a place where women can have healing offered by women. chanting and screaming.

it is intense, watching women around me losing all awareness of their surroundings. sheika fatima has her own shocking estimate of how many women have been abused by healers.

back in the city centre, we meet afaf, a tea seller. afaf is one of several women who told the bbc about a healer called sheikh ibrahim. she went to see him when her son became ill. afaf says that sheikh ibrahim told her to have sex with him. we spoke to other women who made allegations of sexual assault and being manipulated into having sex with sheikh ibrahim. the allegations were so serious that our undercover

journalists visit him to gather more evidence.

afterwards, i meet with amal and reem at a safe place to see if they are ok.

bushra has decided to tell her mother what the healer did to her all those years ago.

i return to sudan to question the healers we have collected evidence again. first, sheikh ibrahim, accused of sexual assault or sexual exploitation by three women. he has agreed to be interviewed about the allegations against him.

sheikh ibrahim removes his microphone, abruptly ending the interview. we turn our attention to sheikh haytham. initially, he agrees to be interviewed but then claims we have the wrong person.

so a journalist from our team visits his house. we take our evidence to sudan's top religious authority.

i tell him about the evidence we have gathered.

during our investigation, more than 80 women broke their silence about appalling sexual violations. despite all the evidence we have gathered, moroccan and sudanese authorities are not taking any action to protect these women.

good morning, all. wow, what an incredible week of weather we have just experienced across the uk. for six consecutive days we saw temperatures on or above 30 degrees. that was a september record and on saturday,

we saw the highest temperature we have seen this year, with 33 degrees. the weather story will change though over the next couple of days with the introduction of this pretty slow—moving weather front. it will gradually change the wind direction to more of a north—westerly, which is going to introduce, slowly, some fresher air from the north. but before that, we've got quite a muggy feel out there and some sharp thundery downpours pushing in from the south—west over the next few hours. temperatures first thing sunday morning will be sitting mid—to high teens, quite widely across england and wales. a little bit fresher, particularly to the north—west of the great glen. but please bear that in mind if you have got a ticket for the start line for the great north run. it's going to be a muggy old story and there will be a lot of sunshine around as well, both for the spectators and the athletes as well. we run the risk of some thundery downpours continuing to move their way steadily north as we go through the day,

so it's going to be sunny spells and sharp showers. the showers pretty hit and miss there and with the sunshine, we will continue to see some warmth. some of those showers could once again be heavy and thundery as they're moving their way steadily northwards. into scotland, central parts of scotland and northern ireland, largely fine and dry and here is our weatherfront into the far north—west still some outbreaks of rain here. so a fresher feel here but elsewhere, we could still see temperatures into the mid to high 20s, perhaps peaking in the south—east 32, possibly 33 degrees once again, depending on how much sunshine we see. as we go through the evening and into the early hours of monday morning we see some sharp thundery downpours began drifting their way steadily northwards. the thunderstorms will gradually ease and that weather front will gradually slip its way steadily south. temperatures perhaps into the mid—teens ahead of it but it's monday when we will start to see the signs of more of a significant change. as we go through the week ahead,

it turns a little bit fresher and certainly more unsettled. that's it, take care.

live from washington, this is bbc news. more than 2,000 people are dead after the strongest earthquake in decades devastates parts of morocco. leaders at the g20 summit issue a joint declaration promoting peace in ukraine, but critics say it doesn't go far enough in condemning russia's invasion. hello, i'm helena humphrey. we begin in morocco, where more than 2,000 people are dead and many more are missing following the earthquake that struck the country early on saturday. entire villages are reported to have been flattened, like here in taroudant. rescuers are scrambling to save families trapped under the rubble. it's a challenge made harder by the fact that roads to many of the worst—hit areas have been blocked by landslides. in many remote towns, like here in tansgart,

buildings are made of traditional materials