Mende Nazer: A Slave in the Sudan
Mende Nazer was born in 1982 to the
Nuba tribe in the Nuba Mountain region that borders the North and South
Sudan. Mende, her family, and tribe are all Muslims, but despite this,
they have been attacked for decades by the Arab militia forces of the North
Sudan. Thousands of Nuba, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, have been abducted
by these bandits and sold into slavery. At the age of 12, Arab militia once
again attacked, and Mende was taken away as a slave along with many other Nuba
children. Prior to her abduction, Mende had a dream of becoming a doctor
so she could give medical aid to the poor people in her tribe. That dream
was destroyed by the Arab militia. As the militia took to children to the
Sudanese capital of Khartoum to be sold into slavery, she was repeatedly beaten
and raped by Arab militia fighters.
In Khartoum, Mende soon
found herself sold to a cruel Arab family. This family was very racist and
they viewed all Africans, even fellow Muslims, as inferior (Despite the fact
that Mende's father taught her that Allah created all people to be
equal." The Arab family referred to Mende as "Abeed" which
is a derogatory term for "slave," and gave her the cruel name of
"Yebit,' which means "girl worthy of no name." For years
Mende was forced to work as a slave, performing all manner of demeaning
work. She was stripped of all sense of identity and constantly beaten
when she protested her treatment. Her owners beat her with a pipe when
they caught her playing in a sprinkler. They repeatedly mocked her and
said that she was no better than a donkey. They even spat on her when she
said her daily Islamic prayers and told her "Islam is not for
black." Mende's slave owners sought to destroy her entire sense of
identity, they even stripped away her tribal beads, which was her only
remaining link to her previous life.
After years of slavery,
her masters finally decided that she was broken enough. They made the
decision to send her to London to work with some of their relatives for a
time. After arriving in London, Mende continued to work as a slave for
months. In fact, there is an epidemic in London of people like Mende
being flown there and forcibly enslaved in the homes of Middle Easterners who
reside within the city. Nevertheless, Mende finally managed to make
contacts with a handful of people and succeeded in escaping from the London
home in which she was enslaved. She eventually was put in contact with
Damien Lewis, a British Human Rights Activist who has for years reported on the
atrocities befalling African tribes in the South Sudan region at the hands of
the tyrannical North Sudanese regime. After nearly eight years in prison,
she was finally able to contact her family in the South Sudan. She was
shocked when they told her that the North Sudanese Government had told her
family that she had been abducted by Christian extremists. Mende had to
explain to her that it was Christian activists who had helped to save
her.
Mende eventually told
her story. You find her book by clicking on the link below. She
worked with numerous anti-slavery organizations and eventually was granted
asylum in England. By working with numerous activists, Mende eventually
helped to expose that the government of the North Sudan has been actively
facilitating and supporting this slave trade of the African people in the Nuba
Mountains and the South Sudan.
Comments
Post a Comment