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Interviews with Darfur Survivors
 Adam Hussein
23 March 2005
My name is Adam Hussein, I’m from Sudan and now I am in UK and so I live in Doncaster.. My father
was a teacher and my brother was working in a gold mine, so I live in Kutum [sic]…I grew up there. We [had] a small
shop in the town …we [had] a farm also elsewhere we [had] cows…People [in Darfur] are very kind and very friendly,
even if you have nothing you can live with other people who help you
[One] day I was in a town with my uncle, and my sister. Suddenly we saw aeroplane come through the town
and start bombing. After a few minutes, we seen Janjaweed, [who] attacked my sister and my uncle and they die. So I hide myself
and then I got out. So, during that time, I see other Janjaweed, they catch young girl, like ten or thirteen years old; other
one is standing by his gun and the other one start raping that girl. That girl is a friend of my sister… After that,
my father start fighting with those people. He got out and he come near me. He said to me “Be strong, my own son. Be
strong…Today some things should be difficult.”
[Later, when in jail in Khartoum], I saw [the prison guards] asleep one day…I managed to escape through
the wall. I know my uncle who lives in Soba. So I went there. I knocked the door; my uncle opened for me. He asked me “Where
is your father?” I tell him my father arrested with me. I don’t know where is he. He said “We hear when
he was in his cell but we hear they bombed the area at the time, and [maybe] your mother… went to Zalingi or she went
to Chad.” And I have two brothers, with my mum and my sister. I don’t know where Adele is now. My uncle give me
some money. He said for me “Straightway you go. Maybe you can…try to go to Ethiopia…”
I took a lorry from Soba to Port Sudan. We arrive in Port Sudan. [On the ship we stayed] 29 days or 28 days,
if I do remember. [When we arrived,] they said “Come on, let’s go to the police station.” I said “Yes,…”
So we drop in Ashford, UK. Ashford police gave me paper. He said for me “You may go to Home Office in Croydon.”
So, I arrived here in 19 th of January.
First, I am saying thank you, your people. You’re trying to show the people how people making genocides
…and there’s other people didn’t know what happening exactly. I’m asking for everybody UN, any organisation,
anybody, UK, USA, any country, who has enough power, he may help those people to put a border from the government and his
Janjaweed. I hope they may build our area where there’s schools, because knowledge is very important. Therefore, it
has enough there, if …people they learn, they may know how to build up. That is what I hope.
 Fatima
July 2004
This interview was conducted by Dr James M Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust with, Fatima, a Darfuri
refugee on the border between Darfur and Chad. (Translated)
JMS - Dr James M. Smith
FH - Fatima Hassan through a translator
JMS - Why did you leave Darfur and come here to Chad?
FH (Through translator) - She said, that she came here because there are problems in Darfur.
JMS - And when did she come, when did she arrive here?
FH -21 days ago.
JMS - Ok, and could you tell me the name of your village?
FH - It is the village, Deuta.
JMS - Is it a large village - Deuta?
FH - It is big.
JMS - How many people?
FH - Bigger than this village.
JMS - I didn't ask her name in fact. What is her name?
FH - Fatima
JMS - Fatima. Can you describe what happened in your village in Dueta 21 days ago. What happened to Dueta?
FH -The Janjaweed and the government came to her village and surround the village. After that they burnt
the village and killed, anyone, they found. Men, women, children. Some of them - a lot shot by guns but a lot by knives, slaughtered
by knives. After that they went away from the village - run away from the village and into El Geneina.
JMS - How many people in her village were killed?
FH - More than 100 were killed in the village.
JMS -What family did she have or does she have - a husband and children?
FH - Eight. Eight from her family were killed. Her husband and her children, all her children and her fathers
brothers. Her daughters, boys and her husband and her fathers brothers were killed.
JMS - How old is she?
FH - 40 years old.
JMS - And was she there at the time that her family were killed. Did she see this? Can she describe what
happened at that time when they were killed?
FH - And the government with cars and trucks and Antonovs bombing the village. Some of her family were killed
by the bombing of Antonovs and her husband was killed in front of her when she was running,
JMS - When she was running,
FH - Yes when she was running her husband was killed there.
JMS - What killed her husband?
FH - He was shot.
JMS - By the shooting. Who was shooting?
FH - Janjaweed
JMS - They have guns?
FH - Yes, Janjaweed have guns. Janjaweed buy camels and horses and the Government come behind Janjaweed
with artillery in the cars and trucks.
JMS - Did she see the artillery?
FH - She says that she saw the artillery of the government on the cars and the kind of the artillery is
12.7. You know, 12.7.
JMS - Did she say that?
FH - Yes she say that. A dushka.
JMS - She said 12.7.
FH - We call it in Sudan, 'dushka'.
JMS - Ah. Dushka
FH - Yes she said 'dushka'. Ok she said dushka but the military name is 12.7.
JMS - Ok so everybody knows what dushka is?
FH - Yes everyone in this country. Everyone in Darfur knows what a dushka is because Janjaweed and Government
are using it in the village. In all these villages Government uses the dushkas.
JMS - So she ran away. She saw her husband getting killed by the artillery. Some of her children had been
killed by then. Then what happened to her? Can she explain?
FH - She said her sister was killed also near her. She said that when she was running and her sister was
running. Her sister also was shot by the gun and fell down dead. After that they ran into El Geneina into the shanty towns.
JMS - So what day was that? How long ago was it that that happened in her village?
FH - Four months. Four months.
JMS - Four months ago. Ok. And then what happened to her after that?
FH - After that, when she ran into El Geneina and lived in the shanty towns with no shelter. She went outside
of that area to collect bush like this to make a small shelter. She met Janjaweed outside of El Geneina. After that the Janjaweed
talked with her and tied her and hit her with sticks and broke her hand here. They wanted to rape her. They tied her and broke
her hand and also hit her on the head and the leg because she denied the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed wanted to rape her but she
denied them. It was because of that they hit her.
JMS - They were trying to rape her?
FH - She said that after that they raped her by force. When she stopped them she was tied by a rope and
raped.
JMS - So they couldn't rape her because she was fighting them, she was struggling?
FH - Yes she was struggling, but they being much stronger than her.
JMS - They tied her up and then they raped her.
FH - Yes!
JMS - And then they raped her.
FH - Yes! After that they lay her down.
JMS - And how many of them were attacking and raping her?
FH - Three. Three people from Janjaweed.
JMS - Can she explain to us why she thinks this is all happening? I know that you know but I want her to
explain what she thinks?
FH - She said that the Janjaweed want all people to be refugees or displaced and to get them from the place.
They will not let old men or children or anyone [stay].
JMS - It must be very difficult for her to think how she's going to live her life now. What is she going
to do?
FH - She said that now she is suffering no food, no shelter, no clothes and she doesn't know what she will
do. She said that there are only humanitarian organizations who can help her. She doesn't know what she will do.
 Anwar Bhakar
23 March 2005
My name’s Anwar Bhakar, I come from Sudan, …in Darfur. Yes, my childhood, I was live with my
family, go to school. For a long time I think in the ‘80s when I was child, you see we hear from in the other side this
problem that the house is burning. Who’s burning? Arab. In the other side we hear the family has died; who has killed
them? Arab. And the main point of the Arab, they want to be in power, to get and power, to kill all these people because they
do not have anything, they just imagine they are idiot people they are just people who are ignorant, they don’t have
anything to do with us because they are weak people. Sometimes [the Janjaweed] come and attack the villages with government,
see the are just coming and attacking the villages without anything. Why? Why? Why? They have come and attack the villages,
they say ‘we just want to protect ourselves’; from what? Now in all the area of Darfur you don’t get people
who are practicing their traditions...because the system of government prevents them to do this… Why? Because they want
to forget their cultural, to forget their traditional, to forget everything because..Why? Try to mix, to try to be like Arab…
All people now.. even in the school they say we speak Arabic… Why? We have our culture, we have our language, why [should
we] speak like Arabic?
[The killers] have .. they have bad things in their heart because now.. can you imagine someone kills your
family, kills your village, how could you in the future even for generations, you cannot stay with them. And you can’t
make your life better because you have sadness in your heart , that these people, and even you want to talk to your child
or you generations children, where is my father, where is my grandmother, they say, we don’t know. I don’t think
because the situation when I left Darfur was absolutely dangerous and I get a list of the people who …had been killed
and died so I don’t think they are still alive.
I need all organisations to make serious… decisions on how to access, how to go to end Darfur, how
to give these people food. The Government should give access to people or organizations, to go to Darfur to see there and
make more report about the events what has happened there in … Darfur.
[My journey from Sudan to UK] was dangerous, because … I just agreed with them.. to send me anywhere
because my life is just so dangerous…I can’t do anything so I just hiding in the place until I came here. I was
singled to go somewhere … no war, no prosecution or no.. I just wanted to save my life. Why do people hate me like this?
I came to save my life. Even here [in UK], I get problems, I wish I didn’t come.
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I was there for six months in Darfur. I was in Sudan for a total of thirteen months. I worked originally in the Nuba Mountains
monitoring the North-South cease-fire. Then I moved over to Darfur last September. Every day we'd conduct patrols to go out
to see what these two here [Darfur survivors, Adam Hussein & Anwar Bakar] have experienced.
The third is that we can stop what's going on there with a number of things. I think the no fly zones are a good idea. I think
weapon sanctions against the Government of Khartoum is a good idea and I think we need more troops on the ground, whether
that comes from the AU, whether that comes from the UN; more people are needed on the ground to stop the killing and what's
going on.
soldiers there they do not have a mandate to protect civilians or protect a village but they put them there to protect a 10
man monitoring team. And within one week 3000 people returned to that village to rebuild. And now according to the State Department
I spoke to last week ten thousand people have returned.