Slave Liberation and Humanitarian Aid Mission to Sudan

Field Trip Report (Juba, Malwal Kon, Rumdier, Wanjok, Gok Machar, Parmat) January 13 to 20, 2007.

Participants: Dr. John Eibner, Dr. Luka Deng, Gunnar Wiebalck, Aaron Cohen, assisted by Pastors Tito Athian and James Ayang, CSI Field Coordinators Dominic Deng Kuoc and Franco Atak and local support teams.

Introduction

CSI launched its 2007 Free, Feed and Heal the Captives Campaign in mid-January, with a slave liberation and humanitarian action in Sudan. The geographical focal point for this action was Aweil State in Southern Sudan. Aweil State borders predominantly Muslim and Arab Northern Sudan, including Darfur, the current scene of the 24-year-old genocide process.

Aweil and neighboring Warap State are inhabited by Black African Christians and traditionalists. These areas were severely affected by Sudanese government-sponsored slave raiding during the North-South Civil War (1983-2005). Although slave raiding in the area was suspended as a result of the peace agreement signed in January 2005 by the Government of Sudan (GOS) and the Southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), tens of thousands of Southern slaves remain in bondage in Northern Sudan. CSI’s primary goal for this action was to facilitate the liberation and return home of 102 slaves.

The war-weary and desperately poor population of Aweil State is currently burdened by the massive influx of displaced people. One element is made up of natives of Darfur and displaced Dinkas originally from Aweil, who are fleeing the widespread violence in Darfur and Kordofan. The second, and much more numerous element is made up of natives of Aweil (members of the Dinka tribe) who were displaced in the North-South Civil War, and have returned voluntarily to their homeland. They arrive exhausted and with virtually nothing to rebuild their lives. CSI provided emergency humanitarian aid, including survival kits and medical support, for such displaced people and returnees, including liberated slaves.

CSI’s field physician, Dr. Luka, reported cases of meningitis in the Aweil area. Immediately following our visit, the Government of Southern Sudan confirmed that the outbreak had assumed the character of an epidemic with hundreds of deaths.

Overview of Results of Mission

Liberated: 102 slaves.

Delivered: 2,000 Survival Kits.

Delivered: Three months’ supply of medicines for CSI’s clinic, headed by Dr. Luka Deng.

Slave Liberation

102 Black African slaves were liberated from Baggara Arab masters and returned to their homeland in Southern Sudan in an action supported by Christian Solidarity International. The freed slaves were brought to two locations (Rum Dier in Aweil East County and Pamat in Aweil North County) by representatives of the Warawar and Manger Ater Arab-Dinka.

Most of the liberated slaves - mainly boys and young men - had been captured by Sudanese government-sponsored militias during two decades of civil war, pitting the Arab-Muslim dominated Government of Sudan against the predominantly Black African Sudan People’s Liberation Front (SPLA).

Interviews reveal a strong pattern of physical and psychological abuse. The overwhelming majority of the liberated slaves had been subjected to beatings, racial and religious insults, forced labor and denial of the freedom to practice any religion other than Islam. Most of the girls and women had been subjected to sexual abuse.

Among the slaves were:

16-year-old mother Agor Deng: I was enslaved as a little girl. I remember my mother carrying me on the way to the North. I was repeatedly raped by my master, Adam Abakir and his associates. Sometimes, as many as four or five men did it. As a result, I bore a child. Adam Abakir and his wife excised five of my finger nails with a knife after I failed to obey an order to grind grain. Some people heard me scream and came to help. They prevented them from cutting out the rest of my fingernails. I had no choice but to obey their orders to pray and behave like a Muslim.

30-year-old Garang Akot Wiir: My right arm and leg were partially paralyzed after I was beaten and tied up tightly for 24 hours. This was punishment for attempting to escape. I was about 15-years old then. My master gave me the name “Abdelrazik Ezzadin” and made me perform Islamic rituals. Even though I did this, he still called me “infidel” and other bad names.

45-year-old Achol Loc Wiel: I was shot in the leg when the Arabs raided our village. I also lost my husband and three children during the raid and the following forced march to Northern Sudan. They were separated from me, and I have never seen them since. In the North, I was gang-raped by my master’s friends. He also forced me to stop practicing my Christian faith and to pray like a Muslim.

35-year old Gau Anyar Gau: I was captured when I was about 11-years-old. The Arabs killed many people. They shot my father. I saw him die. I don’t know what happened to my mother. My sister Achol and my brother Ngong were captured with me. But we were soon separated from each other. I never saw them again. On the way to the North, we reached Grinty, and I couldn’t keep up with the others. One of the Arabs pulled out a knife and was going to cut my throat. But another Arab saw what was happening and jumped on the one with the knife. He saved my life. The knife cut my face instead of my throat. The Arab who saved me was Ali Majoub. He became my master. I looked after his camels. He was kind to me. He gave me the name Majoub Ali Majoub, as if I were his son.

24-year-old Wiir Kuan Wiir: I was enslaved at an early age and forced to become a Muslim. I was given the Muslim name Muhammed. One day, I went to the market with my master and fell into conversation with some Dinka Christians. They were not slaves. They told me about their church and encouraged me to visit them. From time to time, when I was looking after cows in the bush, I would visit the Dinka Christians. They told me about Jesus, and I decided to become a Christian. They gave me the name Abraham. But I had to keep this secret. My master found out I was meeting with the Christians. He punished me with a beating and by pouring drops of hot water on my ear.

25-year-old Dut Yai Yai: I was enslaved when I was about four years old. I am a Muslim. When the murahaleen raiders came, they moved through the forest. I had been looking after goats and was bringing them back home. After being captured, I was taken to a cattle camp at Omdriss. I couldn’t escape. I didn’t know where to go. I was captured with five other boys. Three of them were relatives. The other two were friends. We were all kept at Omdriss for about one year. Then they were scattered elsewhere. I remained in Omdriss. On the way to the North, two boys who were captured in Bako tried to escape. Their names were Bol and Garang. They were caught and had their throats cut right in front of us. I had to walk the whole way to Omdriss. The Arabs beat me whenever I slowed down. All of us were boys, except for one lady, Ayak. Mahmoud Shegbebi was my master. He was the one that captured me. I had to look after his cows and goats. I stayed in the cattle camps. When it rained I slept under Mahmoud’s shelter. Otherwise, I slept outside. Mahmoud had two other Dinka slaves, Dut (Mohammed) and Akech (no other Arab name) Akech was given to Mahmoud’s brother Adam. They are still with their masters. They were all older than me. The worst thing about slavery was getting sick. Even then I had to work hard. There was no rest and no money. I had to call Mahmoud "Abun" (father). But I still remember my mother and father. Mahmoud said: "You are my son and must go to Koranic school.” I was in Koranic school for one month. After that, I had lessons from a fekki (Koranic teacher) in the cattle camps. I was taught that Dinka people were bad infidels. Mahmoud said: “A dog is better than an infidel.” This made me feel bad. I knew I was a Dinka. Mahmoud sent me away with nothing other than what I am wearing. I have already seen my Uncle Yai Magok since I’ve been here. He has given me some food.

Dut was reunited with his uncle, Yai.

14-year-old Maror Achier Kuol: I was taken as a slave when I was about six or seven years old. I was from a Christian family, but I had to become a Muslim. My master Adharam renamed me “Hassan”. He also beat me regularly, forced me to work without pay and called me bad names. One day I was looking after cows and wounded my leg on a branch. It got infected and never healed. It is always open and the flies like to settle on it. Adharam never did anything about it.

We took Maror to the clinic of CSI’s field physician, Dr. Luka Deng. After examining the open wound, Dr. Luka said that such a tropical ulcer, if left untreated would ultimately lead to cancer of the bone. Once bone cancer sets in the choice is amputation or certain death. But with a short course of antibiotics and daily cleaning and dressing, Maror’s wound should heal within a few weeks. We left Maror in Dr. Luka’s care. Maror’s leg, and perhaps his life itself was saved.

Slave retriever, Ahmed B. – an associate of the Arab-Dinka Peace Committee in Warawar – greets Dr. John Eibner upon the arrival of CSI’s documentation team.

The liberation and documentation of the 102 slaves was the result of cooperation between Arab-Dinka Peace Committees, the civil authorities in Aweil State, local churches and CSI. Each slave was interviewed, with case details of personal circumstances and abuse entered into a form. The details are subsequently input into CSI’s electronic database of freed Sudanese slaves.

Following the documentation of the liberated slaves, CSI provided each one with grain and a survival kit to help them re-establish themselves as free individuals in their homeland. Each survival kit includes a blanket, a water container, a mosquito net, plastic sheeting, a sickle and fishing hooks.

Protestant pastor, Rev. Tito Athian, a longstanding local CSI partner, expressed joy at the liberation of the slaves, stating: "Thank you for helping bring back our people from slavery. Now they are free to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ and choose their own religion."

After witnessing several CSI slave liberation actions, including last week’s, anti-trafficking consultant and author of The Jubilee Prophecy, Aaron Cohen, said: "I have seen first hand, in 23 countries, the positive changes good programs can have in the lives of enslaved people. CSI has created in Sudan a sustainable and effective program which has liberated thousands of slaves, inspired anti-trafficking legislation, and brought hope to people in bondage. CSI’s pioneering work in Sudan is an excellent example to all abolitionists."

Emergency Aid to the Displaced

Over five million Black Southern Sudanese people were forced to flee their homes for the North during two decades of devastating slave raiding in the borderlands between Northern and Southern Sudan. The majority of the displaced were from the Aweil and neighboring Warap State. Widespread racism and religious bigotry make life for Southern Sudanese hard and precarious in the Arab and Muslim dominated North.

Most long to return to their homeland. Since the signing of the 2005 peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, this has been possible. Last year, tens of thousands of displaced people migrated to Aweil and Warap, hoping to find security and rebuild their lives. Many came, trusting in the promises of assistance from the international community. For example, in anticipation of the mass migration southwards of displaced people, a very clear promise of a comprehensive aid program was made in March 2004 by then senior USAID official Roger Winter in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa:

“USAID programs will benefit people returning to their homes, including internally displaced persons (IDPs), ex-combatants, former abductees, and will coordinate with the State Department’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration on assistance to returning refugees. Using emergency sources of funding, USAID will provide short-term assistance to returnees with transportation, shelter, and kits with basic household utensils and supplies, as well as support their engagement in employment and small income generation, using development funds… These programs will jumpstart activities so that they are available immediately after a peace agreement is reached.” (Roger Winter, U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, March 11, 2004.)

Roger Winter correctly stressed that such emergency aid programs would not only meet a pressing humanitarian need, but would be an important factor in stabilizing politically Southern Sudan after 22 years of devastating civil war.

The promised programs never materialized. As a result, the tens of thousands of migrating displaced people who came into the Aweil area - many fleeing violence in Darfur and Kordofan - faced terrible hardship. CSI representatives witnessed them sleeping under the trees, and eating leaves and drinking filthy water in the hope of surviving. We documented this appalling failure of the international community in our March and May 2006 field trip reports.

On this visit, we visited Majok-Yith-Thieu, a sprawling settlement of 13,000 people only a few miles from the border with Northern Sudan. The first of the refugees to arrive in Majok-Yith-Thieu had been driven out of the Northern town of Meiram, near the border with Darfur, in an anti-Dinka pogrom in mid-November 2006. CSI received news that over 4,500 Black Africans were forced to flee their homes when Arab Muslim supremacists threatened them, and committed acts of violence, including murder, rape, robbery and arson. Survivors also claimed Black African children were tortured and beaten to death, with bodies thrown into wells. Many of the displaced arrived wounded in Southern Sudan. These details were subsequently confirmed by members of a UN/Interagency team of investigators. CSI immediately launched an appeal and dispatched its Humanitarian Aid Coordinator, Gunnar Wiebalck, to provide survival kits and medicines.

In January, we returned. We found thousands still living in a desperate situation. Nurse Isaiah Yai, who has been living with the displaced, recounted the character of the international response to the humanitarian crisis at Majok-Yith-Thieu:

I was sent here in November by the Government of Southern Sudan’s Ministry of Health. The understanding was that I was to open a primary health care clinic. But the Government provided no medicines. Fortunately, I received consignments of basic medicines from CSI and International Rescue Committee (IRC). But the stock of medicine is almost depleted. Neither the Government of Southern Sudan, nor the UN, nor any non-governmental organization has made a commitment to provide a regular supply of medicine. Many people die needlessly just because some very basic medicines, like antibiotics, are not available. A few weeks after the displaced first fled here from Meiram, the World Food Program (WFP) delivered some grain. That action averted many deaths and much suffering. But WFP has left the settlement, and I don’t know if they will return. CSI was the only organization to provide survival kits. Oxfam tried several times to drill bore holes for drinking water. But they drilled to over 400 ft, and failed to strike a vein of water. A road construction company that is working nearby sends a water tanker every day from the Bahr El Arab River, but it is not enough for all the people. Most families have to send women and girls to a bore hole that is a three hour-walk from here. The help provided by CSI in this crisis is greatly appreciated by everyone in the settlement. Displaced people are still coming here hoping for a better life in Southern Sudan.

Following our conversation with Nurse Isaiah, we distributed more survival kits to those who had not previously received CSI survival kit distributions. Among them were three women, Adwal Guaot Majok, Abuk Majok Anei and Adior Deng Athian and their 17 children. All of them lived together in one primitive grass shelter.

Another recipient was Anjong Wek Majok. This young mother had arrived only nine days before our arrival with five children. She had not yet put a roof on her grass shelter. Anjong had been unable to find any relatives, and had received no help before CSI gave her and her children a survival kit.

While surveying the settlement of displaced people, a mother, Nyanut Awer Kuac showed us her starving baby, Deng. She explained that two-year-old Deng was not taking the breast, suffered from diarrhea and was unable to walk. Nurse Isaiah examined the child, and said he probably had not much more than two days to live. We took, the mother and the child with us, and flew them to the MFS hospital in Akuem. They were admitted, and assigned to the hospital’s feeding center. The MSF doctor said we got the child there just in time, and his chances of survival were good. (MSF has announced that the Akuem Hospital is due to close at the end of March.)

We met the Governor of Aweil State, Madut Biar. He gave us an overview of the problems facing his state regarding slavery and returning displaced people:

CSI’s slave liberation work has been a real blessing for our people. We hope you will continue. There is now a window of opportunity to free many enslaved women and children. The peace agreement with Khartoum means that there is now considerable freedom of movement. Slave retrievers can go to places that they had no access to in the past. Another important factor is that the slave owning Baggara Arabs are moving further South in great numbers to escape from the war in Darfur. This movement brings many slaves within reach of recovery. My own relatives are enslaved. I want to see them set free and return home. The President of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, has placed the struggle to end slavery and the return home of slaves on the agenda of our Government in Juba. It is my intention to convene a committee made up of people from the executive and legislative branches of Aweil’s government to address the issue.

The UN has a plan for the return of only 150,000 displaced people to the whole of Southern Sudan, including 15,000 to Aweil State. This is just an arbitrary figure, based on the amount of resources the UN is prepared to offer. There are over five million Southern Sudanese who are still displaced in the North. The largest single group comes from Aweil. The UN has registered 15,000 people from Aweil and has promised to help them return to their home areas. But we know that far more than 15,000 will return and that the UN does not always do what it promises. Last year, the UN and other agencies were unable to meet the basic needs of the returnees and displaced people from Darfur who flooded into the area. The signs are that the same situation will arise this dry season, but on a greater scale. The situation will be at its worst between March and May. Masses will try to reach the area before the rains come and cultivating begins in May. Aweil State is not in a position to provide food, clean water, shelter, and medical services to most of the returnees. We do not have the resources for such a massive aid program. CSI’s provision of food, seeds and survival kits is highly appreciated throughout the area.

Conclusions

Despite peace agreements signed by the Government of Sudan and rebel armies, the genocide process continues in Sudan, especially in Darfur. Although fighting has been largely suspended in Southern Sudan, civilians are still suffering and dying because of the lingering consequences of the genocide process.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Black Sudanese are in danger of dying this rainy season (May-September) because of continuing violence, and the lack of food, shelter, seed, clean water and medicine.

Tens of thousands of Black Sudanese remain enslaved in Darfur and neighboring Kordofan.

Promised "peace dividends" have not been delivered by the United States and other nations to Southern Sudan. Over two years ago, Roger Winter of USAID testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Sub-Committee on Africa about the vital importance of “quick start” programs aimed at helping displaced people and freed slaves return to their homes in an orderly, humane manner. He declared:

“Using emergency sources of funding, USAID will provide short-term assistance to returnees with transportation, shelter, and kits with basic household utensils and supplies … These programs will jumpstart activities so that they are available immediately after a peace agreement is reached.” (March 11, 2004)

The failure to deliver such “peace dividends” to post-war Southern Sudan does not encourage hope that similarly promised “peace dividends” will ever reach Darfur.

Recommendations

The U.S. Government should make good its promises to Sudan’s slaves and returning displaced people by cutting strangulating bureaucratic red tape and delivering forthwith emergency food, seed, survival kits and medicines to vulnerable displaced populations. (The dry season months of February, March and April will be the critical window of opportunity that must not be missed again.)

President Bush should build on his administration’s success in paving the way for a fragile, but real cessation of hostilities in Southern Sudan by initiating long overdue action to secure the liberation and repatriation of Sudan’s forgotten slaves, including backing Congressman Chris Smith’s legislation for the establishment of an independent commission to monitor slavery and its eradication in Sudan.

The American public, especially its component of committed Christians, should follow the example of William Wilberforce and our abolitionist forefathers by making the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade an occasion for extending God’s Amazing Grace to today’s victims of slavery in Sudan and throughout the world.



Dr. John Eibner, January 28, 2007