This article is part of a writing assignment for Voices of Our Future
a program of World Pulse that provides rigorous digital media and
citizen journalism training for grassroots women leaders. World Pulse
lifts and unites the voices of women from some of the most unheard
regions of the world
Published here
One night in December, 2011, Grace refused to
serve a Sudanese customer who used to drink tea and coffee daily without
paying a cent. He would tell her “This is not your country; either serve me for free or leave to your home land where you can protest”.
At that moment, he became enraged and poured the boiling water kettle
all over her right side, from the shoulder down to the hips, causing
severe burns. I met her 10 months after the accident, and she had not
recovered yet. Her arm muscles seem to be severely affected. She had no
money to feed, shelter or cover her medical needs, except for the
donations she receives from time to time.
Grace has no official papers to file a case against the perpetrator
who ran away in a street full of hundreds of people. She thinks that
Sudanese people simply let him go because she is a foreigner. While
working as a tea lady she was paying a guard to keep her tea set when
the public order police raided the street and she ran away. She was
caught several times by police officers who searched for money in her
bag and the rickshaw she used every night to go back home.
Grace is one of the Eritreans in Sudan who stayed out of the recorded
115,000 refugees and 3000 asylum seekers. Her story is similar to a lot
of Eritreans who crossed to Sudan seeking better opportunities but
ended up in misery. The trip to Sudan is not easy at all; trafficking
networks are very active in Eastern Sudan near Eritrea's border areas
and extend up to Sinai desert in Egypt. Kidnapping of Eritreans happens
all the way to Shegerab, the refugee camp. The most vulnerable are women
who flee Eritrea alone. Stories of rape, sexual exploitation and
torture are very common among the new arrivals.
Grace fled to Sudan on 2008, along with 9 of her friends who walked
from Tisani to Kassala in six days due to the boarder's control.
Rasheida trafficking gangs found them, and while the smuggler escaped,
they stole from them all their money and papers. They were released
after her friends' relatives in Europe paid ransoms to the trafficker.
They continued walking towards Kassala, where they found a smuggler to
take them to Khartoum. According to UNHCR over 1000 Eritrean
refugees cross the borders to Sudan monthly, escaping political and
religious repression, endless military service, and poverty. They flee
Eritrea seeking better living conditions and opportunities, but Sudan is
not their safe haven.
Eritrea is a small country located in the horn of Africa, with a
population of 6 million persons. It witnessed 30 years of armed conflict
with Ethiopia that led to its independence in 1993. From the beginning
of the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, Eritreans have been
crossing the borders to Sudan as their intermediate or final
destination. After independence, their reasons for fleeing are
arbitrary detention, torture, absence of freedoms, forced labor, and
indefinite military service.
In the early morning of May 27, 2007 a police force raided Marry's
house in Eritrea and arrested her and her husband because of being
Protestants. She took her younger child with her and left the two elder
children in the house alone. She was detained for 6 weeks in Adapeto
prison and released because her child was suffering from skin ulcers.
She signed a pledge not to practice her religion anymore. "Although I was arrested while I was sleeping, not praying,"
said Marry. After her release, she was isolated and stigmatized; people
neither visited nor greeted her. They were all afraid they may be
arrested too. She agreed with her husband about fleeing Eritrea before
him to Sudan. She left her two elder children with her mother.
The government of Eritrea controls the religious activities and
acknowledges four “recognized” religious groups which are the Orthodox
Church, Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism, and the Evangelical Church.
Other religious groups are not recognized since 2002, according to a HRW report
in 2012. The Sudanese government also controls the religious activities
of people. After South Sudan secession; the president has declared
Sudan an Islamic country with no room for any religions' chaos. Soon
after his speech, all the Christian holidays were cancelled. Even
Christmas celebrations were banned without the security permission that
churches have never attained. Last year, mass arrests of Christian youth
occurred in Khartoum during Christmas time forcing them to flee the
country soon after their release.
Bereket Issack graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor’s Degree in
Agriculture from Asmara University in Eritrea. He was immediately
assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture where he completed his
university service successfully, but the military service is indefinite
and usually lasts for years with payment not exceeding 30 USD monthly.
Bereket said "However, due to the unlimited national service, I
was obliged to cross to Sudan, leaving my families behind. In September,
2010 I made a connection with a friend living nearby the borders of
Sudan. Two weeks later; I was able to cross to Sudan via Hafir village
to Shegerab along the way to Khartoum.” The story of Bereket
called back my childhood memories of fear. During 1990's; hundreds of
Sudanese secondary school graduates and youth including cousins and
neighbors were fleeing the country because of the obligatory military
recruitment through kidnapping them from the streets and public
transportation and sending them to battlefield in the South.
Committee to Protect Journalists identified Eritrea as one of the most censored countries in the world
for the past 6 years. With the total absence of independent media; the
world has no access to what's happening inside Eritrea. No single news
agency was able to investigate the coup attempt of January 2013. Jamal
Himad, an independent journalist who worked for the Eritrea's Liberation
Front in 1991 and as a presenter in Eritrea's official radio station
was forced to flee to Sudan in mid-1995. He was fired from his job
because of not being affiliated with the ruling party. He, along with
many educated Eritreans in Sudan, formed Mabdara, a civil society organization that aims to spread values of democracy and human rights, and "Adoulis" the Eritrean Centre for Media Service. He said "Eritrea
is a piece from hell, with no constitution, no legislation, no
independent media, and no civil society or trade unions, except those
affiliated with the ruling regime,"
Sudanese authorities are the extended hands of Eritrean regime. In
October, 2011 Mr. Jamal Himad was arrested in Khartoum by the Sudanese
security and detained for 2 months just before Isias’ visit to Khartoum.
A few days before Himad’s arrest, Sudan deported 300 Eritrean asylum
seekers to Asmara, leaving them to face torture and imprisonment. In
December, 2012, two Eritrean journalists in Khartoum were arrested by
security and detained for 3 weeks. The Eritrean Embassy has filed a
complaint against them because they have organized a workshop on
disaster management for Eritrean youth. One of those journalists was the
person who introduced me to the Eritrean community in Khartoum. His
arrest has terminated many plans we've put to support Eritrean refugees.
Random abuse by Sudanese authorities is a threat to Eritreans in
Sudan similar to threats incited by the Eritrean government against its
opponents. Bereket was arbitrarily arrested nearby his work place by two
men wearing police uniforms and two men in plain clothes. He faced no
charges, but they took his yellow refugee card and threw him into jail
for two weeks with many Eritrean men. While he was in detention, his
fellow Eritrean detainees advised him, as long as he can afford paying a
bribe, the police will set him free.
Social integration of Eritreans in Sudan has always been an obstacle
for non-Muslim, non-Arabic speaking Eritreans. Sudan is imposing a
certain dress code for women, alienating minorities and oppressing the
personal freedoms especially for Eritrean women. While Sudanese women
are taking the risk and challenging the public order laws of the dress
code; Eritrean women have always been an easy target. Listening to Grace
and Marry has touched me personally. They called back all memories of
violence and harassment I've experienced because people thought I'm
"Habasheia" a term used to describe Ethiopian and Eritrean ladies.
In May, 2012, I stopped with my boyfriend in a juice shop to drink
some lemonade, after a long exhausting day. A man was moving around us
and staring at me. I asked my boyfriend not to start a fight with him
because I'm too tired and I just want to go home. While my boyfriend was
looking for a taxi; the man attacked me for reasons I couldn't
understand saying "Habasheia; go back to your country, Damn you".
He touched me and started beating me up. I shouted loudly to him and
called my boyfriend. When he noticed, I was chasing the man in the
street and shouting at people to catch him, but they just let him go.
If you look like an Eritrean you will be treated like them. For this
reason; many Eritrean ladies try to change their appearance and give
themselves Arabic names.
Marry is usually wearing a black Abaya and a cotton scarf. She
looked at my braided hair and my jeans saying that this was her favorite
appearance in Asmara. Now she would never dare to wear jeans or take
off the scarf, putting her at risk of abuse by revealing her
non-Sudanese identity. Another woman testified that she was arrested for
not wearing a Hijab; the police officer told her, “You are not Sudanese; if you want to go out with “naked” hair it is better to get back to your country”.
Marry and Grace found themselves with limited opportunities of
employment as they haven’t been to college, just like thousands of
internally displaced Sudanese women. They end up competing over informal
sectors like tea business or domestic work. Resettlement also seems to
be difficult for Grace without getting her refugee status. Marry finds
it impossible to leave for a third country far away from her two
children in Eritrea. Although she hasn't seen them for the past six
years, she doesn't want to be far away.
Jamal has recently been resettled in Australia. As a friend of his, I
was sad to say good bye. He is one of us and he shouldn't go, but I
remembered that most of my fellow activists have fled Sudan. Bereket
applied for resettlement in Canada and Switzerland, but luckily he found
his way out and got a postgraduate scholarship in the German University
of Hohenheim. With all the unfortunate incidents that he faced, he
still thinks Sudanese people are generous and friendly. He is planning
to get back to Sudan for his thesis research and try to help his people
in Sudan. He thinks there should be cooperation between UNHCR
and the Sudanese authorities to ensure the security of the refugees and
asylum seekers in Sudan. Such cooperation would be in favor of
protecting them from random abuse by the authorities, but would never
secure the opponents of Isias’ regime as long as there is diplomatic
cooperation between the two dictators. Resettlement remains a solution
for selective cases and will not provide a solution for most Eritreans.
The dilemmas of Eritreans in Sudan are not their own; but also ours.
The situations that drive them to flee are mostly the same that force
Sudanese people to leave their home. The discrimination they face inside
Sudan is what the Sudanese people struggle to end. The culture of
exclusion deeply influencing the behaviors towards “others” is what must
be changed. The “other” is a refugee, an IDP, a person from different
ethnic background, a woman or a person with different beliefs. I long
for a radical solution for Eritreans’ and Sudanese dilemmas: working
towards maintaining democratic states in Eritrea and Sudan and promoting
human rights and appreciation for the human diversity within the
societies.
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