Nyibol’s first moments of freedom after a decade in slavery 
 
by Pastor Heidi McGuinness

Beaten so savagely by her master, her kidneys had been damaged.

The place was Majok Buol – not far from Wunlang. South Sudan. The names and place form bookends for a young woman’s story of torment and despair.

It was May 13, 2009. Oblivious to triple-digit heat, we made our way, to the liberation site where over 125 men, women and children awaited us. Fifteen of the enslaved women held an infant or toddler in her arms.

Their stories had been processed by the CSI field team working closely with local chiefs, elders and pastors. Impeccable attention was paid to the details on the identical form for each person’s intake documenting their name, the day of abduction, the name of their slave owner, the treatment while in captivity and many other important details. One of the questions on the form is “Where you sexually abused?” Another is “Did you see any executions of your own people?”

On the forms that matched the three women and the two boys that I was to interview in depth, I focused on the line item “Did you see any executions?” only after I had established a caring and respectful relationship with the first woman I interviewed, Nyibol Deng Garang.

One is never prepared, really, to hear such horror unfold from another human voice and heart, especially one so young. Nor can one imagine a young girl could surviving such trauma. This is Nyibol’s story.

She was abducted at ten years old by Baggara Arabs who invaded her peaceful local market place. The invaders killed, looted, and took a number of other children and several women in ropes on a journey to hell. Nyibol was ten years old and gang raped, along with the others, multiple times, day after day.

We communicated in silence, as well as with words, about her memories. After some time, I gently, respectfully asked, “Nyibol, it is noted on your initial interview that you were witness to two executions. Are you able to tell me more about what you saw?” I immediately saw trauma etched in her face as she recalled horrific images fearfully ensconced in her mind. In low, hushed, staccato phrasing she pulled the words together. Holding her infant son close to her bosom, looking down, and occasionally taking a glance at me, her mind was turning, “Would I flee or stay by her side?

“Yes, two people were executed. It was done by the brother of Sadiq Hamet. Sadiq was my master. It was a lady and a boy.” She knew them but couldn’t remember their names. “Sadiq’s brother cut off their heads in front of my eyes and hung their heads into the tree. They made us look at the heads and the bodies. Pointing to the heads Sadiq’s brother said, ‘this will happen to you if you ever try to escape.’”

Before me was such a deeply traumatized young woman. I felt that I needed to bridge the physical distance between us of approximately ten feet. Wanting to collapse what might be perceived as an impersonal gap between interviewer, translator, freelance journalist, and her aloneness in retelling her story, I placed my note pad and pen aside and slowly and gently walked towards her, without invitation, and took my place next to her and her baby boy.

Ultimately I did what any mother, auntie, sister or grandmother would do-- I just held her for a while and offered words of comfort. It was then that she told me more. What could possibly add to this twenty year-old’s despair over a past that no young woman should ever have to experience?

“I have a son,” she said. “Yes,” I answered, looking at this adorable toddler who had made eye contact with me, allowing me to hold him and fuss over him lovingly. “I have another son,” she added. “He is six years old. I couldn’t bring him with me – he is left behind.” She said it with such a deep, despairing sorrow, as if her heart would never mend over the loss of her firstborn.

Did I hear her heart break? If one could hear a human heart break, I certainly did hear it then. Her human loss was as tragic as the savagery that made her witness the severing of heads of two of her neighbors as they were forced to walk into slavery. 


This is Nyibol’s story. Though she is now free, she is forever bound to her son who couldn’t make the journey home. 


This photo was taken hours after the interview. I detect a smile on Nyibol’s face and recognition from her little boy: “I know you! You’re our friend.” I can’t help but feel Nyibol is walking into her future, a future filled with freedom, promise, and the love of the Lord beckoning her to a new life, a free life.

Pastor Heidi McGinness serves as the Director of Outreach of Christian Solidarity International’s US affiliate. She is the recipient of Denver, Colorado’s 2010 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award and the Business & Social Responsibility Award honoring her work freeing those held captive in Sudan.