Personal eyewitness testimony from rescuers and survivors:

• Rabbi Polak giving the Seder to 175 Recently Freed Slaves
• Ker Aleu Deng one of the boys freed by CSI
• Jonkor a Young Abused Slave
• Nyibol Deng Gang the brutal story of Female Slaves

Rabbi Polak Speaks to 175 Freed Slaves about the Passover Exodus

Ker Alue Deng, boy freed by CSI

I don’t know where I was born. All I can remember is living in the North with my mother (Angel Mangok Diing) and Zakaria Salih. Zakaria was our master. My mother lived with him as a concubine. My mother told me that my father died and that we were captured and taken to the North by Murahaleen (Baggara Arab) raiders. We lived with Zakaria in a village called Jama Jur. (It’s in Kordofan, between Meiram and Muglad.) My main work was to look after goats and pick hibiscus leaves for tea. Zakaria was a violent man. He often fought with my mother. Sometimes it was so bad she would run away to neighbors for protection. Sometimes Zacharia would chase us away. He beat both of us a lot. He usually used a camel whip. I had to call Zacharia “father”. But he called us bad names, like “kafir” (unclean infidel), “abd” (slave) and “jengei” (nigger). He never called me “son”. He gave me an Arab name “Abakir", and never called me by my real Dinka name. My mother gave birth to Zacharia’s children. My half brothers and sisters were unkind to me. I don’t know what happened to them. They disappeared and no one told me where they went. Zacharia sent me to khalwa (Islamic school) to learn how to be a good Muslim. I was taught there that a kafir is a dirty person who does not know God and eats filthy things. Zacharia blinded me by hanging me upside down from a tree and rubbing chili pepper in my eyes. He left me hanging there for a long time. To add to my misery he lit a fire near me so the smoke would drift into my face. I screamed throughout the ordeal. I thought I would die. Zacharia did this because he said I didn’t do my work properly. He accused me of allowing hibiscus leave to get wet, allowing his animal to get lost and skipping Islamic instruction at khalwa. He also claimed that my mother and I were planning to escape. I was saved by a neighbor named Bakhit. He was an imam. Bakhit took me into his home and gave me work to do. At first I could still see. But my sight gradually deteriorated. Now I can see nothing, except some strong light in one eye. (Ker reacted strongly when a close-up flash photo was taken at night.)  Bakhit did not abuse me like Zacharia. He was a kind man. But once I became completely blind, he said I was of no use to him. So he gave me to Osman Bashir, who brought me to the South. Since coming back (in May 2010), I have been staying with people from a church in Ariath. I like being at the church services. The church also provides some education. I like sitting in on the classes and listening to what is being said.

Compiled by Dr. John Eibner, based on Gunnar Wiebalck’s interview on 19 May, translated by Dr. Luka and Dr. John Eibner’s interview on September 11, translated by Akuei Akuein.

Follow Ker here as he receives surgery to repair the damage to his eyes

Ker Testifying to the US Congress

Jonkor, an 11-year-old Survivor

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about 11-year-old Jonkor: He was sitting under a tree, one of nearly 100 other slaves. He was ragged, dirty, and somewhat listless after being released from his Arab master. But when Jonkor stood up, my eyes fixed on him in horror.

 On his shin, Jonkor had an open, festering wound the size of a fist. The injury was not fresh. Jonkor said two years before, his master had beaten him on the leg. The wound never healed but got steadily worse. By this time, he had given up trying to flick away the flies that competed day and night for a place on the puss that covered raw flesh.

Jonkor’s spirit had also been damaged by seven years in bondage. He was forced to respond to the name “Abdullah,” and his master threatened him, saying: “If you will not pray like a Muslim, I will kill you.” Jonkor obeyed.

We took Jonkor back to our camp and cleaned the wound. I thought the leg might have to be amputated. The infection had reached the bone. The next day, we transported Jonkor about 50 miles to CSI’s field clinic where he could receive food, shelter, and treatment. We left, hoping and praying that his leg might be saved.

 Three months later, I returned to the clinic and found Jonkor’s leg healed. We flew him back to his home area where Arab slavers had raided his village and had taken him from his family.

As Jonkor climbed down the steps of the plane, a woman darted towards him. She threw her arms round him with loving hugs and kisses. It was Jonkor’s mother, Amam.

She said, “I am so happy, I am lost for words to describe my feelings. Today is a day of celebration for me. For years, I’ve been coming whenever an aid flight arrives. Since we were separated, not one day has passed when I haven’t thought of Jonkor. When I learned that CSI would visit today, I decided to keep watch at the airstrip. Thank God my hopes have been fulfilled.

Amam opened both hands, stretched her fingers wide and let out the traditional, high-pitched Dinka whoop: a shout for joy.

Recounted by CSI-USA’s Director of Outreach, Rev. Heidi McGinness.

Nyibol Deng Gang, a female survivor

Beaten so savagely by her master, her kidneys had been damaged.

The place was Majok Buol.  It is close to Wunlang in South Sudan.  The names, the places form bookends for a young woman’s story of torment and despair.

It was May 13, 2009.  We made our way, oblivious to triple-digit heat, to the liberation site where over 125 men, women and children awaited us.  The women numbered 15, all slaves, each with an infant or toddler in her arms.

Their stories had been processed by the CSI field team working closely with local chiefs, elders and pastors.  Impeccable attention was paid to the details of their stories on a form that is the same for each liberated person’s intake. It documents their name, the day of abduction, the name of their slave owner, their treatment while in captivity and other important facts.  One of the questions on the form is, “Were you raped?”  Another is, “Did you see any executions of your own people?”

On the forms that matched the three women and the two boys that I was to interview in depth, I zeroed in on this line item “Did you see any executions?” but only after I had established a caring and respectful relationship with the very first woman I interviewed:  Nyibol Deng Garang. 

One is never prepared, really, for the unfolding horror one hears directly from another human voice and heart, especially one so young.  Nor can one imagine that a young girl could survive such trauma.  This is Nyibol’s story.

She was abducted by Baggara Arabs who invaded the tranquility of the market place killing, looting, and taking her and a number of other children and several women in ropes on a journey to hell.  Nyibol, was gang raped, along with the others, multiple times, day after day.  She was ten years old!

We spoke silently, as well as with words, about her memories.  After a time interval, gently, respectfully I asked, “Nyibol, it is noted on your initial interview that you were witness to two executions.  Are you able to tell me more about what you saw?” I immediately saw her traum etched on her face, as she pulled out those horrific images, fearfully ensconced in her mind.  In low, hushed, staccato phrasing she pulled the words together, holding her infant son closely to her bosom, looking down, and occasionally taking a glance at me.  Would I flee or stay by her side?

“Yes, two people were executed.  It was done by the brother of Sadiq Hamet.  Sadiq was my master.  It was a lady and a boy.”  She knew them but couldn’t remember their names,  “Sadiq’s brother cut off their heads in front of my eyes and hung their heads into the tree.  They made us look at the heads and the bodies.  Pointing to the heads Sadiq’s brother said, ‘This will happen to you if you ever try to escape.’” 

Before me was such a deeply traumatized young woman of twenty.  I felt that I needed to bridge the physical distance between us of approximately ten feet.  I Wanted to collapse that space and what might be perceived as an impersonal gap between the interviewer, translator and the freelance journalist, and her aloneness in retelling her story. Without invitation from her, I placed my note pad and pen aside and slowly and gently walked towards her, taking my place next to her and her baby boy child.  Ultimately I did what any mother or auntie or sister or grandmother would do-- I just held her for a while and offered words of comfort.  It was then that she told me more.  What could possibly add to this twenty year-old’s despair over a past that no young woman should ever have to experience?

“I have a son,” she said.  “Yes,” I answered, looking at this adorable toddler who had made eye contact with me, allowing me to hold him and fuss over him lovingly.  “I have another son,” she added. “He is six years old.  I couldn’t bring him with me.  He is left behind.”  She said it with such a deep despairing sorrow, as if her heart would never mend over the loss of him.  Did I hear her heart break?  If one could hear a human heart break, I certainly did hear it then.  This human loss of hers was as egregious as the bestial savagery that had her witness the severing of heads of two of her neighbors as they were forced to walk into slavery. 

This is Nyibol’s story. She free now and yet forever bound to her son who couldn’t make the journey with whom she dreams of being reunited some day.

Recounted by CSI-USA’s Director of Outreach, Rev. Heidi McGinness.