Halima Bashir, a pseudonym later adopted to protect her, grew up in rural Darfur in Western Sudan.[1] She was the oldest of four children, and did well in school.[1] At the age of eight, she underwent female circumcision. A special meal was held, and she was given money, before being held down in the hut of her grandmother while a razor without anaesthetic was used to cut off any external genitalia.
Her father was supportive when she trained to become a doctor; her father was wealthy enough to send her to a city school, where she excelled as a student. She completed her training just prior to the start of the genocide and War in Darfur. While she was posted in a clinic, she gave an interview in which she disagreed with the official position of the Sudanese government. In response, she was detained and threatened by the authorities, before being posted to a rural clinic in North Darfur and warned not to speak to western journalists.[1]
At her new clinic, she found herself treating the victims of the Janjaweed militia, including 42 school girls who had been gang-raped in a government supported attack on the village. She later explained, "At no stage in my years of study had I been taught how to deal with 8-year-old victims of gang rape in a rural clinic without enough sutures to go around." When two officials from the United Nations came to gather information about the attack, Bashir told them the truth. In response, she was taken by the National Intelligence and Security Service,[1] and was gang raped, cut with knives and burned with cigarettes repeatedly over the course of several days.[2] She was released and returned to her village, where her father arranged for her to be married to her cousin Sharif, who she had only met once before. He had chosen Sharif, because he was viewed as being progressive. The village was attacked shortly afterwards, resulting in the death of her father and the disappearance of her siblings.[1]
For speaking out about this attack to United Nations investigators, Bashir herself was brutally tortured and raped. When she returned to her home village, it had been destroyed by government helicopters and Janjaweed militia. Shortly after, Halima fled the country for fear of the government still hunting her.[3]
Journey overseas and writing
Bashir left Sudan and travelled to the United Kingdom to claim asylum,[1] she had paid a people trafficker with jewellery. While in the UK, she protested the country's lack of action against Sudan, handing a letter personally to Lord David Triesman, the Minister for Africa within the British government.[2] She wrote an autobiography, Tears of the Desert, in collaboration with Damien Lewis, published in 2008.[4]
Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur is an autobiographical book co-written by Bashir and English journalist Damien Lewis. This autobiography gives an account of Bashir's life in the Darfur region of Sudan, marked by personal experience of civil war, genocide, sexual violence and murder.[5] As a result of speaking out about the torture of her compatriots inflicted by Janjaweed militias, Bashir applied for political asylum in the United Kingdom.[6]
In her book, she has changed names and places. However, independent verification by The New York Times has demonstrated the facts appear without any exaggeration.[1] The newspaper also campaigned for Bashir to be granted a visa for entry into the United States.[7] In 2010, she was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award for speaking out about the Janjaweed's violent attacks on school girls in Darfur.[8]
Synopsis
When Halima attends secondary school in the city, she comes up against traditional enmities between the black Africans of Darfur and the minority Arab elite and their group's subsequent discrimination against the black Africans ever since. She further speaks about the lack of support from teachers in physical fights stemming from prejudices against schoolgirls, which leads to expulsion – all of it an early lesson in helplessness.[9]
Aim of the novel
Co-author Damien Lewis stated that one of his goals was to, "make (…) you or I or anybody else in the West feel that that could be them (…) how would they feel, if that happened to them, brings it home to on the personal human family level. What would you feel, if it was your children or your father, or your grandparents, or your village? (…) So it doesn't feel like thousands of miles away in a different culture in a place we don't understand".[10]
Critical reception
Kirkus Reviews called Tears of the Desert "both heartrending and chilling."[11]Publishers Weekly expanded on the idea, saying the book "offers a vivid personal portrait of life in the Darfur region of Sudan before the catastrophe," and "the violence the author recounts is harrowing."[12]
↑ Bashir, Halima; Lewis, Damien (2008). Tears of the desert: a memoir of survival in Darfur. New York: One World Ballantine Books. ISBN978-0-345-50625-2. OCLC191922835.
↑ Bashir, Halima; Lewis, Damien (2008). Tears of the desert: a memoir of survival in Darfur. New York: One World Ballantine Books. ISBN978-0-345-50625-2. OCLC191922835.
Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as Sudan's head of state under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état. He was subsequently incarcerated, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges. He came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier general in the Sudanese Army, he led a group of officers in a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi after it began negotiations with rebels in the south; he subsequently replaced President Ahmed al-Mirghani as head of state. He was elected three times as president in elections that have been under scrutiny for electoral fraud. In 1992, al-Bashir founded the National Congress Party, which remained the dominant political party in the country until 2019. In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur. On 11 February 2020, the Government of Sudan announced that it had agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC for trial.
The Janjaweed are a Sudanese Arab militia group that operates in Sudan, particularly in Darfur, and eastern Chad. They have also been speculated to be active in Yemen. According to the United Nations definition, Janjaweed membership consists of Sudanese Arab tribes, the core of whom are from the Abbala Arabs, traditionally employed in camel herding, with significant recruitment from the Baggara.
The Masalit are an ethnic group inhabiting western Sudan and eastern Chad. They speak the Masalit language.
Ali Osman Mohammed Taha is a Sudanese politician who was First Vice President of Sudan from July 2011 to December 2013. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995, First Vice President from 1995 to January 2005, and Second Vice President from August 2005 to July 2011. He is a member of the National Congress Party.
The Zaghawa people, also called Beri or Zakhawa, are an ethnic group primarily residing in southwestern Libya, northeastern Chad, and western Sudan, including Darfur.
The National Congress Party was a major political party that dominated domestic politics in Sudan from its foundation until the Sudanese Revolution.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
While there is a consensus in the international community that ethnic groups have been targeted in Darfur and that crimes against humanity have therefore occurred, there has been debate in some quarters about whether genocide has taken place there. In May 2006, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur organized by United Nations "concluded that the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide ... [though] international offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be more serious and heinous than genocide." Eric Reeves, a researcher and frequent commentator on Darfur, has questioned the methodology of the commission's report.
Ahmed Mohammed Haroun is one of five Sudanese men wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Despite international pressure on the government of Sudan to surrender him to the ICC, Haroun served as Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs until May 2009, when he was appointed to the governorship of South Kordofan. In September 2007, he was appointed to lead an investigation into human rights violations in Darfur. In July 2013 he resigned as Governor of South Kordofan, and was reappointed by Omar al-Bashir as Governor of North Kordofan. On 1 March 2019, President Omar al-Bashir handed over the running of the country's leading political party, the National Congress, to him. He was arrested in April 2019 by local authorities in Sudan following a coup which overthrew al-Bashir.
Musa Hilal is a Sudanese Arab tribal chief and militia leader and adviser to the Sudanese Minister of Internal Affairs. His Um Jalul clan exercised tribal leadership of the Arab Mahamid tribe in Darfur. The Mahamid are part of a larger confederation of camel-herding (Abbala) tribes of the Northern Rizeigat. Musa is the leader of the Janjaweed militia, which was responsible for a massive military campaign against civilians in Darfur in 2003, as part of a counterinsurgency effort against Darfur rebel groups. On 21 January 2008, the Federal Government of Sudan announced the nomination of Musa Hilal as the chief advisor of the Ministry of Federal Affairs in Sudan. This position allows Mr. Musa to coordinate with regional leaders surrounding Darfur, as well as with Arab tribal groups, on the relations of the military regime.
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, commonly known as Ali Kushayb, is a senior Janjaweed commander who supported the Sudanese government against Darfur rebel groups during the Omar al-Bashir presidency. He was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. He was known as aqid al oqada and was active in Wadi Salih, West Darfur.
The International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur was established pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1564 (2004), adopted on 18 September 2004. The resolution, passed under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, urged the Secretary-General to set up an international commission to investigate human rights violations committed in Darfur. The following month, the Secretary-General appointed a five-member panel of highly regarded legal experts: chairperson Antonio Cassese, Mohammed Fayek, Hina Jilani, Dumisa Ntsebeza and Thérèse Striggner Scott.
Team Darfur was an international association of athletes devoted to raising awareness of humanitarian crises related to War in Darfur. It is among the many organizations that consider that war to involve genocide.
Darfur is a 2009 American film directed by Uwe Boll concerning the War in Darfur, starring David O'Hara, Kristanna Loken, Billy Zane and Edward Furlong. The film was also released as Attack on Darfur.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1556, adopted on 30 July 2004, after recalling resolutions 1502 (2003) and 1547 (2004) on the situation in Sudan, the council demanded that the Sudanese government disarm the Janjaweed militia and bring to justice those who had committed violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Darfur.
The International Criminal Court investigation in Darfur or the situation in Darfur is an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into criminal acts committed during the War in Darfur. Although Sudan is not a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty which created the ICC, the situation in Darfur was referred to the ICC's Prosecutor by the United Nations Security Council in 2005. As of June 2019, five suspects remained under indictment by the court: Ahmed Haroun, Ali Kushayb, Omar al-Bashir, Abdallah Banda and Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein. Charges against Bahar Abu Garda were dropped on the basis of insufficient evidence in 2010 and those against Saleh Jerbo were dropped following his death in 2013. In mid-April 2019, Haroun, al-Bashir and Hussein were imprisoned in Sudan as a result of the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état. In early November 2019, the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok stated that al-Bashir would be transferred to the ICC. One of the demands of the displaced people of Darfur visited by Hamdok prior to Hamdok's statement was that "Omar Al Bashir and the other wanted persons" had to be surrendered to the ICC.
Throughout the ongoing Darfur genocide in the Darfur war there has been a systematic campaign of rape, which has been used as a weapon of war, in the ethnic cleansing of black Africans from the region. The majority of rapes have been carried out by the Sudanese government forces and the Janjaweed paramilitary groups. The actions of the Janjaweed have been described as genocidal rape, with not just women, but children also being raped, as well as babies being bludgeoned to death and the sexual mutilation of victims being commonplace.
Damien Gavin Lewis is a British author and filmmaker who has spent over twenty years reporting from and writing about conflict zones in many countries. He has produced about twenty films.
The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the War in Darfur and the ongoing War in Sudan (2023–present) in Darfur. It has become known as the first genocide of the 21st century. The genocide, which is being carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, has led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, generally referred to mononymously as Hemedti, Hemetti, Hemeti, or Hemitte, is a Janjaweed leader from the Rizeigat tribe in Darfur, who was the Deputy head of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) following the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état. Since 2013, Hemetti has commanded the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). He was considered by The Economist to be the most powerful person in Sudan as of early July 2019.
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