28 Jul 08 One of the Worst Stories in the World
I can say nothing about what follows. You need to read it; the world needs to read it. But it will be one of the hardest reads of your life, and it will haunt you.
“It was around nine o’clock,” Sumiah began. “Lessons had just started. All of a sudden, I heard the pounding of hooves and wild yelling. Doors were smashed in and the windows too. We didn’t even have time to cry for help. Suddenly they were inside. It was like a band of wild animals just jumping on us and forcing us to the floor. All around me girls were being raped, regardless of their age. The Janjaweed carried guns, knives, heavy sticks — the ones they use to beat their horses. If any girl tried to resist, they beat her.
“They were shouting and screaming at us. You know what they were saying? ‘We have come here to kill you! To finish you all! You are black slaves! You are worse than dogs! Either we kill you or we give you Arab children. Then there will be no more black slaves in this country.’ The worst was that they were laughing and yelping with joy as they did those terrible things. Those grown men were enjoying it, as they passed the little girls around.
“In all the confusion one or two of the girls managed to escape. They ran to their homes and raised the alarm. But when the parents rushed to the school they found a cordon of government soldiers had surrounded it and were letting nobody in. If anyone came too close, the soldiers shot at them with their guns. Parents could hear their daughters screaming, but there was no way they could help.
“For two hours they held the school. They abused the girls in front of their friends, forcing them to watch what they were doing. Any girls who tried to resist were beaten about the head. Before they left, they spat on us and urinated on us. They said, ‘We will let you live so you can tell your mothers and fathers and brothers what we did to you. Tell them from us: if you stay, the same and worse will happen to you all. Next time, we will show no mercy. Leave this land. Sudan is for the Arabs. It is not for black dogs and slaves’.”
Next day I heard a vehicle stopping outside. Two smartly dressed men introduced themselves to me. They were from the United Nations, they told me, and they had come to investigate reports of an attack on the school. I agreed to tell them all I knew, on condition my name wasn’t used.
A week later another vehicle pulled up. Three men dressed in shabby uniforms strode into the clinic. With barely a break in their stride they hauled me to my feet by the scruff of my white medical tunic.
“Move!” a soldier ordered. “Move! You’re coming with us!”
They marched me to a waiting jeep and threw me into the back. No one spoke a word. A voice kept yelling inside my head: they’re going to kill you; they’re going to kill you; they’re going to kill you.
They took me to the far side of the village, to a military camp, where they dragged me into a hut with a concrete floor and bare brick walls. The windows were barred and shuttered. A single lightbulb revealed dark, blotchy stains on the floor.
Without warning, the beating began. I was kicked hard in the stomach. I fell to the floor and tried to cover my head with my arms. A boot made contact with my face, a searing white light shooting through my eye socket. Another kick to the head, this one smashing into the fingers of my hand with a crunch of breaking bone. The dull thump of booted feet slamming into my soft, fleshy parts.
“You are the Zaghawa doctor!” a voice screamed at me. “We know who you are!”
A soldier crouched down, his face a mask of loathing. “Listen — we know you gave information to the foreign people,” he rasped. “This time we will deal with you!”
My arms were forced up behind my back and bound so tight that my joints were burning with pain. I started crying. A dirty piece of cloth was jammed into my mouth and tied tight around my head. Then the boots crunched away and I was left alone in the dark, listening to the scrabbling of rats. I kicked out to let the vermin know that I was alive and could still hurt them. Not yet for the eating. But I knew what was coming: rape and death. Death, I could accept. It was the violation by these devils that I could not face. If I could untie the ropes, perhaps I could hang myself from the rafters. But the struggle to break free just caused me more pain.
Shadowy figures unlocked the door. One of them lit a lantern. I saw three strangers in dirty army uniforms, evil and lust burning in their eyes. The three of them took turns to rape me, one after the other. Once the third had finished, they started again. And while doing so they burnt me with their cigarettes and cut me with their blades. They raped me until I lost consciousness. When I came to my senses I wished I was dead. There was nothing anyone could do to me. My life was over.
The second day they came for me again. One animal assault merged into the next. On the third day the door of the hut opened once more. Please, God — not again.
“You know what we’ve decided to do with you?” a voice said quietly. “We’re going to let you live because we know you’d prefer to die. Aren’t we clever, doctor? We may not have your education, but we’re damn smart — wouldn’t you agree?”
From “The Devil Riders of Darfur,” in the July 20, 2008 edition of The Times. An excerpt from Tears of the Desert: One Woman’s Story of Surviving the Horrors of Darfur, by Halima Bashir and Damien Lewis.
