OUT OF SUDAN
As a result of the rape, I had become pregnant. I brought my children and went to live with a woman I knew. She was living in a building that was still under construction, and she was getting paid to keep strangers out. One day on the street I met a German man named Andreas. He worked as an engineer. I started cooking and cleaning for him. I told him my story, and he helped me and was very supportive and gave me lots of money. While I was working for Andreas I had the baby, a son named Ashweel.
Andreas gave me the idea to come to Egypt. He told me that if I come to Egypt and tell the United Nations my story, I might get to go somewhere else. I wanted to do it. He helped me to gt official papers and documents. I had to pay lots of money for passports and documents and it took months, but Andreas helped me. Even after the first agent just stole my money, Andreas gave me more money to try getting papers a second time. That time it worked. I remember I got the passport on September 11, 2001.
Once I had my passport, I went to the airport to buy my exit visa. It was the last step before I could leave. Ashweel was seven months old, so he was old enough to travel. When I came back, I couldn’t find my oldest song, Deng. At that time, Deng was only seven, so he would not have gone away himself. My son Bol said his grandmother had come to take him to the market and then they would come back.
They did not come back. I was so afraid and I was confused. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe to stop my traveling plans and look for my child but then I didn’t know where to look, and I was so afraid to complain to the police. I called my mother-in-law. She said she didn’t want Deng going to Egypt. She had taken the child away to her home village in Singa.
The next day I went on a seven-hour journey to Singa. I don’t know what they told Deng while he was there, but when I saw him he didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe thy told him they would hurt him if he talked to me, but Deng is my son, my son, and I couldn’t understand. The family said they didn’t want me to take the child. My husband’s cousin tried beating me up, and I just ran away because I was afraid they would kill me. I left. I was emotionally destroyed.
I could not stay in Khartoum. If I stayed longr, my visa would expire, and getting another visa is an issue in itself. I was thinking that I would come to Egypt and then come back to take my son. Then I found out that when you talk to the UN, you are cut off from Sudan. I could not go to the Sudanese embassy, and I could not go back to Sudan. I had to find another way to get my son to Egypt.
I left Khartoum with two of my sons. I took a train to Halfa, on the border. It was a tiring trip. I was carrying two babies. The trains broke on the way. Everything was very cold and dusty. I had to squeeze onto seats, and there was no place to move. I spoke to the other people, and everyone was talking about Egypt and Sudan and about their own tragedies, so I found on that other people had bad things happen, and not only me.
