There are no better experts on refugees than refugees

Report from The Guardian - guardian.org
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Dated Monday, 9 October 2023; 06.00 BST - here is a full copy:

‘There are no better experts on refugees than refugees’: Nhial Deng on why politicians need to listen

At 11, the South Sudanese refugee was forced to flee his Ethiopian village and spent several years in Kakuma camp in Kenya. His work helping others there won UN recognition and a prestigious award – now he’s planning to fund a library

Nhial Deng’s incredible journey culminated last month in receiving a prestigious UN prize recognising 14 years of helping other refugees. Photograph: Courtesy of Chegg.org

The militiamen came early in the morning when the children were sleeping. The serenity of Itang, an Ethiopian village on the Baro River skirting a national park close to the South Sudanese border, was about to be broken.

Eleven-year-old Nhial Deng heard gunshots and screaming as his father woke him up, whispering to him that there was only time to pack a shirt, a pen and a bottle of water.

“He brought me outside the house and pointed to a group of mostly women and children and a few men who were gathering under a small tree and told me that I had to go with them to a refugee camp,” says Deng, now 24, recalling the events of April 2010.

“I couldn’t move. I saw houses burning, I saw someone on the ground bleeding, people were running in all directions,” he says. “Someone came and pulled me to the group – I never even had a chance to say goodbye to my dad.”

That day was the start of an incredible journey for Deng, which culminated in him receiving a prestigious prize from the United Nations last month that recognised his work over the past 14 years in helping other refugees.

Deng was born in Ethiopia, where his father settled having fled South Sudan years before, but “it never came to my mind that one day [the conflict] would be something that would affect me directly”, Deng remembers.

It took the group two days to get to another village south of their own, where people divided into two groups. Deng’s group headed to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. After a two-week journey on foot and on the back of trucks, he eventually made it to the camp in north-west Kenya, which today is home to more than 200,000 refugees.

Deng says he was scared and shivering throughout the journey but had hope because “my dad told me while he was holding me that I would be able to go to school – from a very young age my dad told me that education was a tool that I could use to transform my life.”

A pastor took Deng in as part of a fostered family programme and within a few months, he was registered at school.

“I felt at home when I started going to school,” he says. “The school was more than a place of learning for me, it was a place where I was able to find solace, where I was able to find hope, where I was able to find healing.”

Refugees from South Sudan register at Kakuma camp in Kenya. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Kakuma refugee camp was set up in the early 1990s when thousands of Sudanese children, known as the “lost boys of Sudan”, flocked to safety after a civil war.

The sense of community that I experienced in the refugee camp is something that I have not seen anywhere else

“Life in the camp was just incredible,” Deng says. “The sense of community that I experienced in the refugee camp is something I have not seen anywhere else. You’ll see people who have their own challenges who would struggle day in, day out, but would hold on to each other.”

The Red Cross family-tracking programme managed to locate Deng’s family after four years – a two-minute phone call reunited him with his parents in 2014. Initial attempts to find his father failed because he had relocated to South Sudan, but the Red Cross found the family after they returned to Ethiopia.

It was only last year that Deng was able to meet with his mother and six siblings, who now live in Kenya. He has yet to see his father, who is still in Ethiopia, in person.

In 2017, Deng set up the Refugee Youth Peace Ambassadors, a group that started as a Wednesday club at his school and then expanded to other schools providing mentorship and creating workshops.

In 2018, Deng – who identifies as a South Sudanese refugee – graduated from the school, and later took a one-year online course with Regis University in the US, before being admitted on a full scholarship to Huron University in Ontario, Canada, where he moved in 2021 to study global studies and communications.

Deng went back to Kakuma refugee camp in 2021 to set up a new initiative called SheLeads Kakuma, aimed at empowering women and girls through a six-month leadership, advocacy and mentorship programme.

Nhial Deng speaks at the UN’s Transforming Education summit. Photograph: Jaclyn Licht/UN Photo

The UN has recognised Deng’s work helping other refugees. He was invited to speak on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York last month, where he was named the winner of a global student prize worth $100,000 (£82,500). The judges of the Chegg.org Global Student Prize chose him from almost 4,000 students in 122 countries.

“Nhial has overcome unimaginable adversity to keep fighting for a better future, not just for himself, but for thousands like him. In times of crisis, we need innovation and resilience, and Nhial’s commitment to tackling the global refugee crisis is truly inspirational,” said Heather Hatlo Porter, the chief communications officer of Chegg.

Deng has promised to donate half of his prize money to build a library at Kakuma refugee camp.

The UN refugee agency said in June that an estimated 108 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide by the end of last year – the number of refugees rose by a record 35% to reach 34.6 million. Politicians and media, Deng says, “need to talk more with refugees than about refugees”.

“I think no one can tell your story better than yourself. There are no better experts about the refugee issue than refugees and that’s why we need to listen to refugees.”

Deng is critical of how some developed countries disregard “the underlying principle of responsibility sharing” in the UN refugee convention.

Deng now helps young people in refugee camps to improve their lives through education and sport. He is particularly passionate about gender equality and misinformation. Photograph: Courtesy of Chegg.org

“More refugees are staying in countries neighbouring them. Over 70% of refugees actually stay in the developing world, in the global south,” he says, adding that Kenya hosts more than 600,000 refugees and Uganda more than a million.

“They [developed countries] don’t see the bigger picture, but also politicians turn refugees into a political football. They use that for their own gain. Numbers are often manufactured or they are exaggerated in some way. The reality is that a big number of refugees live in the developing world and [host] countries are not getting the credit at all.

“It’s incredible that from the first time in 1991 when the first group of refugees arrived in Kenya, Kenya has not closed its borders to refugees. It’s been open throughout.”

Asked about the potential of refugees, he says: “I think everyone has something to do. Everyone can contribute in some small way.”

View original: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/oct/09/there-are-no-better-experts-on-refugees-than-refugees-nhial-deng-on-why-politicians-need-to-listen

[Ends]

Calling the UN and International Red Cross - Released Sudan official describes ordeal since coup arrest

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: I cannot understand why the UN is not ensuring that these prisoners are identified and visited by the International Red Cross or such like. Surely there are laws in place to protect prisoners.

According to the following report, a rights lawyer representing many of the detained estimated earlier this month that at least 100 Sudanese government members were rounded up in the early hours of the coup. 

Also, activists estimated hundreds of protesters and activists have also disappeared into undisclosed prisons. Saleh (pictured) himself is unsure of who else is being held, but remains worried for their safety.

Many were taken from their homes during the morning of Oct. 25 and have been since kept in undisclosed locations, with no ability to contact family or lawyers. Why isn't the UN helping with legalities? Read more in this report.

By ASHRAF IDRIS Associated Press (AP)

Published at www.abcnews.go.com

Dated 24 November 2021, 19:47

Released Sudan official describes ordeal since coup arrest

A Sudanese government official says he was kept in isolation for nearly a month after being arrested during a military coup that plunged the country into crisis

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- A Sudanese government official said Wednesday he was kept in isolation for nearly a month after being arrested during a military coup that plunged the country into crisis.

Faisal Saleh, an advisor to Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, told The Associated Press that security forces took him blindfolded from his home in the early hours of Oct. 25

“We were expecting that there was a military coup coming," said Saleh, who also served as minister of information from 2019 until earlier this year. ”We just didn't know how or when it would take place."

Saleh is one of dozens of government officials who have been locked up since the country's top general, Abdel-Fattah Burhan led a coup against the country's interim civilian government. It has upended plans for the country to transition to democracy, more than two years after a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

Saleh was released late Monday [22 Nov] after 29 days of detention and immediately set about learning the events of the past month. He's still catching up and recovering from a chest infection that he contracted during his time in prison.

It remains unclear how many remain in detention, but in recent days activists' posts have indicated that several prominent opposition figures have been let go.

A rights lawyer representing many of the detained estimated earlier this month that at least 100 government members were rounded up in the early hours of the coup. The country's prime minister, Hamdok, was held under house arrest for weeks before being reinstated just days ago.

Activists estimated hundreds of protesters and activists have also disappeared into undisclosed prisons. Saleh himself is unsure of who else is being held, but remains worried for their safety.

Many were taken from their homes during the morning of Oct. 25 and have been since kept in undisclosed locations, with no ability to contact family or lawyers. The military leaders have also cut off mobile and internet communications across the country.

Saleh said after his arrest he was taken to a room locked from the outside, with a bed, dresser and toilet. He was given two meals a day and told he had access to a doctor if needed. He slowly concluded that he was being held in a military facility in Khartoum, the country's capital.

But his captors made one thing clear: He was only allowed contact with the guards who brought his food. He suspected colleagues of his were in the same building but had no way to know. Nor did he hear about the violence that followed the coup.

“I think being together with other people makes it easier,” said Saleh, who was also imprisoned under al-Bashir. “But this time I was alone, and I didn’t know what was happening outside the room.”

Since the takeover, protesters have flooded the streets in the biggest demonstrations since those that ended al-Bashir’s three-decade reign in 2019, and security forces have killed more than 40 demonstrators since the coup, according to doctors' groups.

Saleh is trying to acquaint himself with a new and frightening political landscape. He says he hopes soon to be able to sit down with his former boss. He is also calling for all detainees to be released, whether they are politicians or protesters.

“Only then we can look into the next steps,” he said.

The military reached a deal with Hamdok on Sunday [21 Nov] that would reinstate him as the head of a new technocratic Cabinet ahead of eventual elections. But the agreement has splintered Sudan’s pro-democracy movement, many of whom accuse Hamdok of allowing himself to serve as a fig leaf for continued military rule.

Saleh's account comes as the country slowly emerges from weeks of limited mobile and internet access.

On Wednesday, the internet advocacy group NetBlocks said that social media and messaging platforms were now fully functioning in the country for the first time since the coup.

View original: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/released-sudan-official-describes-ordeal-coup-arrest-81378472#

Sudan: International Red Cross must visit detainees

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: According to various news reports such as the one copied here below, more than 100 government officials, political leaders, activists and protesters have been detained in Sudan since the military coup on October 25. 

Twenty-five of those detained including Ibrahim al-Sheikh face charges of inciting troops to rebel against their leaders, according to El Tahir Maki Idris, one of the lawyers working with those detained and a family member of al-Sheikh. They could face life imprisonment if convicted.

Also, since the military coup at least 14 anti-coup protesters have been killed due to excessive force used by Sudan's security forces, according to Sudanese doctors and the United Nations and the internet is still cut off.

This site Sudan Watch has received visits from China but, unusually, not Sudan. I have not yet found news of any neutral aid organisations such as the International Red Cross being called upon by the UN to visit the 100+ detainees to verify their wellbeing and living conditions.

Surely there are international laws in place such as the Geneva Conventions [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions ] to protect people from being arrested and detained at secret locations where there is no evidence of how they are being treated and when they will be released. 

Here is a full copy of a news report from and by Rédaction Africanews

Dated Wednesday 10 November 2021

Sudan coup: Detained minister's wife Amani Malik Ibrahim worried

Amani Malik Ibrahim has seen her husband detained many times during his fight for democracy in Sudan, but she never thought once he became a government minister he would be subjected to the same thing.

Yet armed soldiers knocked on the door in the early hours of October 25, before putting a gun to Ibrahim al-Sheikh's head and one to his wife's chest.

As al-Sheikh was being detained, his son Mohammed managed to take a few pictures, quickly sending them to his sister in Egypt.

A few hours later the internet was cut off in Sudan.

This was hours before top general Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan dissolved the transitional government and detained other government officials including al-Sheikh, and the country's prime minister Abdalla Hamdok.

More than 100 government officials, political leaders, activists and protesters have been detained since October 25.

The coup came more than two years after a popular uprising forced the military's removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his Islamist government in April 2019.

Al-Sheikh, was the minister of industry during the country's fragile planned transition to democratic rule.

He is also the head of the Sudanese Congress Party.

Ibrahim, his wife, is a lawyer and says the whole family has a history of detentions in the fight for democracy.

She says al-Sheikh has been arrested at least 15 times throughout his lifetime. His longest stint in detention was 100 days.

While they are used to the stress of detention, this time al-Sheikh's health is weak.

"At the end of the day, we are human. It shook us," Ibrahim said from their family home in Bahri.

Ibrahim says her husband has diabetes and high blood pressure, and was already ill before he was taken away.

After 12 days without news, al-Sheikh along with many others detained was allowed to call their family but his voice worried Ibrahim.

Ibrahim is working along with an association of lawyers on her husband's case along with others detained.

Twenty-five of those detained including al-Sheikh face charges of inciting troops to rebel against their leaders, according to El Tahir Maki Idris, one of the lawyers working with those detained and a family member of al-Sheikh.

They could face life imprisonment if convicted.

But little information is given to the lawyers who have been working furiously on the case but hear little back from the prosecutor's office.

In the days since October 25, there have been massive protests in the streets of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

Sudanese have taken to the streets in masses against the coup.

The protest movement insists on a full civilian government to rule Sudan during the transition.

Since the takeover, at least 14 anti-coup protesters have been killed due to excessive force used by the country's security forces, according to Sudanese doctors and the United Nations.

Military leaders have maintained they were compelled to take over because of alleged quarrels among political parties that they claimed could lead to civil war.

See video posted at the original report here:  https://www.africanews.com/2021/11/10/sudan-coup-detained-minister-s-wife-amani-malik-ibrahim-worried-over-his-health/