Debay

I

t may be odd to start a story at the end. In 2020 Debay was a key worker during the COVID-19 pandemic, working to keep people in Britain safe and to keep vital services running. Very few of the people that Debay helped each day during the crisis would know about his background. Very few would be able to guess about the resilience, and spirit that he has shown in his life. Debay has survived the genocide in Darfur. I hope that people all around the world will know about what happened in Darfur. Before 1999, before the genocide in Darfur began, Debay lived what he described as a ‘beautiful’, happy and peaceful life in north west Darfur. His village is called Owi. There were no Arabs in his village, and when they did visit there was no trouble. Debay, when he was young, didn’t know what tribes meant. He didn’t know what tribe he belonged to – everyone seemed to be the same to him. Debay came into the world in 1990 – the second child of his mum, who was a primary school teacher in their village, and his dad. Debay’s dad was a doctor in the village and also spent a lot of his time looking after his camels and goats – signs of prosperity and value in Darfur. He was named El Sadiq by his dad – meaning ‘trust’ in Arabic – and ‘Debay’, which means treasure, by his mum. It was in 1999 that Debay began to become aware of tension and trouble. He was seven years old. At this point people began to disappear and grown-ups were tense and troubled. Although Debay didn’t know it at the time, local men would be taken by the government to go and fight in a war in South Sudan. Although he didn’t know exactly what was happening, Debay knew enough to realise that something was wrong. That bad things could happen. Many of those bad things began to visit Debay’s school. He remembers government soldiers coming and arresting his teachers. Of the four that were arrested and taken away none of them returned. Later still the soldiers returned and killed two men from the village in front of his eyes. Debay was horrified and confused – he asked what crime they had committed, what they could possibly have stolen to bring such a punishment on them. He was told that the teachers and the men had been accused of being American spies, Zionists and of being against Islam, the Arab people and the State. The leader in charge of the army in North Darfur was Awad Ibn Ouf, a man who would be feared in the area.

Often the government troops would accuse villagers of being American spies or Israeli spies or Zionists. For Debay it was ridiculous “I didn’t even know where America was”. “The first white person I saw was in 2003” It was all just an excuse to jail, to torture and to kill. It was a tactic which meant that anyone who belonged to the groups from which rebel leaders came from could be accused and arrested.

Soon the government closed Debay’s school. The teachers were forced to fight in South Sudan or were put in prison…a few lucky ones were able to escape to the bush. One of those who escaped was Minni Minnawi. Debay’s friends told him that he was the leader of the movement to free Darfur from the violence of the army and the Janjaweed. He broadcast on the radio that a revolution had begun. However, it wasn’t freedom that came to the villages that Debay knew in Darfur – it was terror. Immediately before 2003 the close network of villages that typified the area of Darfur that Debay lived in began to shake with news of attacks by the Janjaweed and government troops. Relatives in other settlements began to visit and talk about the violence that was getting closer and closer. As a teenager when the genocide began the overwhelming feeling that Debay felt was fear. He told us that it was “The fear that the next day it would be our village that would be attacked. Even us kids knew that something terrible would happen and that something awful was coming. We were so scared. It was so frightening”. It wasn’t just the children that felt it, the anticipation, it was mums and dads too and even the animals seemed to shudder with fear. Debay and his friends knew that attacks had happened elsewhere and that other villages had been attacked. He knew that the Janjaweed and government soldiers with their bombs, machine guns and rifles would come to his village one day. Any day.

That day came in 2003. Not once. Twice. The Janjaweed attacked Debay’s village once and then again. Houses were burned, schools destroyed, people murdered and animals butchered. Debay’s family fled with others to the mountains and forests to hide. After five months they cautiously returned to rebuild their village and live a normal life again. Then the Janjaweed came again. Debay remembers being woken at about five o’clock on the morning. Going outside he could see that other villages were being attacked and burned as government troops joined the Janjaweed in the attack. Everyone was running. Bodies fell to the ground and “blood was everywhere”, Debay remembers. Debay noticed his younger sister running away and managed to catch her up. He saw neighbours…but lost sight of his mum. “Terror”. Debay and his sister walked for three days. They were hungry and thirsty by the time that they were able to cross the border from Sudan into Chad and stopped at the village of Bahi. They searched for their mother and brother. It worried them when others said that everyone who stayed in the village had been killed by the Janjaweed. Apparently, all the animals had been taken and all the water sources had been buried. The Janjaweed had wanted to destroy the village and everyone and everything that lived there. They wanted to annihilate any trace of the people and their traditions and lives. In the minds of those men on horses who had attacked it would be best if the village had never existed. Debay hoped beyond hope that his mother and brother had been able to run. The people there were desperately poor but they were kind to Debay and his sister. In the middle of the horror, the midst of the evil attacks by the Janjaweed there were some good people who wanted to help. Debay and his family were given a tent to sleep in, a blanket to cover them, food to eat. They were basic things but, to Debay, they were incredibly valuable. He was a refugee but the fact that someone had given him these things made him feel valued. After three weeks Debay and his sister found their mother and their little brother. They had escaped and were well… but many of their relatives had perished in the attack. Three years later. Debay found himself walking back into Darfur and Sudan. He was with a group of young people who were returning. Debay did so to fulfil his dream of becoming a doctor. He also felt that he wanted to fulfil a dream for his mother – to help remove some of the pain in her eyes that he had seen after the attack on their village in 2003. The car that he was in was stopped by government soldiers. The questions came quickly and accusingly: ‘Where are you going?’, ‘Who do you belong to?’, ‘Where are your fathers?’. Some were taken away but Debay was allowed to go on to El Daein, the biggest town in east Darfur. Here he stayed with his uncle who was a teacher there. Although the discrimination against him as a member of a group that the government wanted to destroy was a barrier Debay worked and worked until he was accepted to study pharmacy at university in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. But the situation for students from Darfur in Khartoum was impossible. No one would give Debay a part-time job so that he could pay his fees. Worse still was the work of the government secret police who constantly harassed those from Darfur and accused them of being a rebel or spies for America and Israel. He was given the choiceless choice of spying on his friends from Darfur or leaving. Debay refused and left. Debay returned to his family in the camp in Chad. Debay’s dream was crushed. For Debay genocide was not just the horrific violence that he could see all around him. More than that he saw how a people were controlled, scared to tell the truth, frightened to talk to anyone and fearful of saying a word out of place. The government had made ordinary people in Sudan believe that those who came from Darfur were a threat to them. That the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa people wanted to kill them. For those from Darfur being accused by anyone of being a ‘rebel’ and being denounced to the police for any reason meant arrest, prison and worse. Before Debay was born his village knew about the Janjaweed in the 1980s. They were a militia, they carried AK47s and rode horses. They would attack villages, steal animals and rape women if they found them outside of villages. But back then they didn’t have the big guns that the government gave them after 2003. Before 2003 the Janjaweed didn’t destroy entire villages, didn’t burn all the houses down. They were not a big threat like the government troops. That all changed. For many survivors of genocide their trauma lives on. They can’t sleep and if they do they have nightmares. In the day there are headaches and migraines…and the horrible feelings of one day stretching into another day, another week, month and year. The suffering continues well after the events of genocide. Debay would rather not talk about how his experiences and memories still impact him today. 2014. The world turned away from Darfur when the TV cameras left not much past 2006. Nevertheless, the situation did not change. The fear and discrimination and lack of safety remained. Debay had gone back to Darfur with his father and worked as a teacher to help children from his village and others who were hiding from government soldiers in the hills. Soon, though, violence returned. An attack drove Debay and his father to a city where he was soon arrested. The accusations that justified the arrest?

Debay was told that he was a ‘rebel’, an ‘American spy’ and a ‘Zionist’. The allegations would have been laughable had they not meant that Debay was at risk of execution because of them. Debay would only spend about fifteen days in the prison. For every minute of his time he was convinced that he would never leave alive. Sleep was impossible –there were eight people to the bed that he was supposed to rest on and there was no place to close his eyes without another’s head or elbow knocking him awake again. It was a miracle that Debay’s relatives came for him. They were able to bribe the guards to let him go: the commander drove Debay for hours out into the desert and left him…but not before telling him that if Debay returned he would be killed. Debay walked. He walked on with no food, no water and no phone. His only chance for life was to find someone who could help him. After several hours in the desert and as hope seemed as far away as the horizon there came a truck. The truck had animals in the back…and the driver agreed to let Debay ride with them. If they were stopped by soldiers they would explain Debay’s presence more easily if it looked like he was helping with the animals. Debay describes his time in Libya as ‘another tragedy’. His story of working but not being paid, being cheated and exploited because he had no rights. He was losing hope. One of his friends in Libya said that life in Italy was safe and there were chances to study. Debay decided to drop himself into the Mediterranean. He had decided to live in peace or die. He lived. Today, Debay has a plan for the future. He has a burning desire to go back to Darfur to help the people rebuild their villages and their lives. Debay knows plenty of people who can’t study, who lack the confidence to train in new skills. He wants to help change that. More than that Debay wants to return to Darfur to rebuild hospitals and schools so that life for young people will be something for them to cherish.