Christian Sudanese Family Hiding In Sweden Pleads For Help
By Jeremy Reynalds (05/24/05)
A Sudanese Christian family now living in hiding in Sweden say they have been told to leave the country and return to Sudan or Nigeria where they could face death.
The history of Sudan, embroiled in civil war, is long and complicated. Over simplistically, Northern Sudan is Islamic and Southern Sudan is Christian. However, also practiced are a variety of traditional African religions.
In an e-mail interview, Sara told the story of her attempted flight to freedom, along with husband David (first names only used for protection) and their baby daughter.
MEETING JESUS
Sara said she is from Khartoum in North Sudan. She met Christ in Bombay, India, where she was attending university and pursuing a degree in zoology. During that time, Sara had a reoccurring dream in which she heard a voice saying to her, "You must be born again."
Sara told her roommate Gloria, who said she needed to go see a pastor and have him pray for her. While Sara initially rejected that advice, she continued intermittently to have the same dream. However, one night the dream increased in intensity.
"(A) man wearing white came to me in my dream and said to me, ‘follow Me.' He introduced me to some people. All of them were all wearing white and I never recognized anybody there. As I was entering the gathering, I removed my scarf which I has been wearing all my life. After the gathering a prayer was (said for me), and (the man) asked me to go and tell my friends that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and He is the only way, the life and the truth. ‘Go,' He said, ‘you must be born again.'"
When Sara woke up, she told Gloria about the dream. While Gloria's first thought was to take Gloria to her church, she also knew that Sara was nervous about any possible retribution that may occur from her being seen visiting a Christian church, so the women decided to go to Gloria's hometown in South India.
"There I embraced Christ," Sara said. "I (was) happy and filled with the Holy Spirit." Sara said that she and Gloria spent two months in Gloria's hometown, where she "learned the Bible, the basic Christian life and what it takes to be a Christian."
Sara was subsequently baptized by a local pastor. She then spent an additional year at school studying computer and data management.
Before returning to Sudan, Sara said she visited Mother Theresa in Calcutta.
"There I felt more of the need to be a Christian," she said. "I forgot that I was once a Muslim, and meeting her along with other ladies that were working there as nuns, really moved my spirit. (I saw) how she touches people's lives (and laid) her life (down) for the poor."
Sara moved back to the Sudan. She realized that her previous plans to be a lecturer at the Red Sea University in the school's zoology and botany department would "bring me back to my denounced faith."
With that in mind, Sara decided to go to a Catholic school, where she was offered a job.
However, Sara said her relatives were not happy with her new found faith.
"I could not last (at the Catholic school), as my relatives use to come there to see if I am worshiping with them in the morning, as well as wearing (the required Islamic head scarf). On more than three occasion I was harassed heavily by my relatives, stating that I have to leave that job and that they have a new job for me. I knew that they wanted to have me watched."
MARRIAGE (AND TROUBLES) ON THE HORIZON
During Sara's 18 months with the Catholic school, she met her then husband-to-be David, an economist whose ethnicity, color and religion were preventing him from obtaining good employment.
"He is from South Sudan, and dark in complexion, while I am considered fair and white like the Arabs," Sara said. "This form of discrimination has left the South Sudanese to face racism, discrimination and class differentiation in their own land. This is one of the reasons for the long war in Sudan between the north and the south. This is (the) climax of my problem when I decided with him that we will marry."
Sara said she knew that David's ethnicity would result in her facing many problems.
"I know the Sharia law (http://knowislam.info/drupal/sharia) in Sudan and also the situation and persecution that I will face for my decision," Sara said, "but I decided to accept (it anyway)."
Sara's mother told her that she would support whatever decision she made, but she was powerless to stop anything bad happening to David.
"I should make sure that David is out of sight; that they are planning to kill him," Sara's mother told her. "That was the information which made David not come to our house again, even though he came only twice ... All these situations and persecutions ... have left me to live in fear, psychological trauma, persecution and lack of exercising my right of religion. I really felt tortured inwardly as I am always unhappy, and thinking that any time there will be bad news from somewhere."
Sara said that David was threatened by the Arab community, with, as she put it, his adversaries "building a gang of anger (toward) him among the neighbors, so that he will be seen as a public enemy."
In addition to the troubles plaguing her husband, Sara was also facing her own dilemma, still feeling she needed to wear the requisite Islamic head scarf for her safety. Doing that, she said, plunged her into internal turmoil.
"(Wearing the scarf) really killed me. I (felt like I was) living a double life and I felt like dying. The persecution I was going though was more (than I could) bear. I cannot explain all the persecution that I faced and (am) still facing ... My mother asked us to (leave), as the plan was to attack me and my husband."
The couple fled to West Sudan where they spent some time with David's uncle and then decided to move to the neighboring country of Chad (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cd.html).
Sara and David lived in Chad for two years. During that time, Sara said she and David worked at a small non- governmental organization and her daughter was born.
David's dark complexion caused some questions by militant Islamic fundamentalists, resulting in the couple moving from house to house.
"Even the house owner will sell you to the (Islamic) fundamentalists as he was also a Muslim and never liked Christians," Sara said. "This increased my fear ... We decided to look for means to move to a western country that is a free place, and that has laws to protect people (from) fear, persecution and torture of any kind."
SWEDISH GOVERNMENT REJECTS REQUEST FOR REFUGE
As a result, Sara and David paid an "agent" money to help them get to Sweden where Sara said she hoped they would be protected.
However, Sara said, the Swedish government ultimately rejected the couple's request, despite being aware of the fate that could await the family back in the Sudan.
Sara and David's pastor, Kristina, said in an e-mail interview that she met the couple a year ago.
She said after arriving in Sweden they asked for refugee status. "They come to our church and have since then been (some) of our most dedicated church members. They really have brought us great blessings. Now they have been denied (refugee status) in the last instance, and have been asked to prepare for their going back to Sudan. We are not very informed about how to help refugees, so now we are searching for ways to help them."
Sara said that she and David did see a lawyer at the Swedish Immigration Service. But that didn't help, she said. Despite providing a listing of all the "apostasy" cases (www.barnabasfund.org/Apostasy.htm and http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/18/nprince18.xml),
he didn't appear to be moved.
"I am afraid that it made no impact, and also (he) ... did not seem to know much about Sudan ... After we were asked to leave Sweden within 14 days, he never (bothered) to call us or ask us of any thing he can do .... We are living (in) hiding ... and we decided to inform you , and we need protection as our lives are too much in danger."
The exact status of the family's case with the Swedish Immigration Office, Sara said in a subsequent e-mail, is that she, her husband and baby have to leave Sweden and go to Sudan or Nigeria.
Sara said the Swedish immigration officer told her the situation in Southern Sudan is now peaceful.
By e-mail, David disputed that claim. He said a return to South Sudan would be far from safe for his wife as she is from the North.
"The South Sudanese will not see that she is a convert. They will see her and reflect back what they suffer from her former people and that will earn her discrimination and hatred," he said.
David added that his wife's fair complexion would also be an issue. "It will wake up memories which will remain as long as she lives there. Also, you cannot make them understand ... that she is different. They will ask why cannot she do something and that is that.
"At the same time," he said, "South Sudan is still under Sharia law (so) she (would) be (living) with that fear all her life. Those Muslims (who have a) base in the south will continue to monitor people, so it is still the same case of fear (and) persecution."
Sara said she doesn't intend to go to Nigeria either, with its increasing acceptance of Islamic, or Sharia law, in the country's predominantly Muslim northen area (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3667515.stm).
"I and my husband have never been there, and will not (go) there. I do not care which country (I go to). I am educated (and) I can survive, but I do not want to leave in fear and persecution and more. Hence we flew to the western world," she said.
Sara and David's reported treatment by the Swedish Immigration Service does appear to be in violation of the Swedish Alien's Act (www.immi.se/asyl/asyleng.htm), which reads in part, "In this Act refugee means an alien who is situated outside the country of his nationality because he feels that he has a well founded fear of persecution by reason of his race, nationality, affiliation to a particular section of society or by reason of this fear does not want to make use of the protection of that country. This provision applies irrespective of whether the fear of persecution emanates from the national authorities, or because it may be assumed that they are not prepared to provide protection from persecution by private people."
However, Sara said, having a law is one thing. Following it can be entirely different.
Both she, her husband, and a number of Swedish citizens, Sara said, believe that the Swedish Immigration Service is not adequately following the law that mandates protection for refugees seeking asylum.
"Immigration has been criticized recently for the way they handle asylum and refugees," she said, "without any consideration of humanitarian needs. If you can read the Swedish papers or Amnesty (International's) website on Sweden, it is daily news the way they treat refugees. (They) allow them to stay for sometime and ask them to go back. Even now some Sudanese from Western Sudan(Darfur) are asked to go back" (http://hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=darfur).
A report concerning Sweden on Amnesty International's (AI) web site reads in part (http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/swe-summary-eng), "A broader range of asylum applications was considered to be ‘manifestly unfounded,' even though the legislation was unchanged and the profile of arriving asylum-seekers remained largely the same. AI believed that the accelerated procedure used to determine these claims fell short of the requirements international standards demand of a fair asylum procedure. The claimants were, among other things, denied access to legal aid and were not protected against being forcibly returned to their home countries or a third country pending appeal against an initial rejection of their claim. AI also expressed concern that the Swedish government on several occasions referred to the changed situation after 11 September 2001 as a reason to introduce carrier sanctions (penalties against carriers who transport inadequately documented passengers, including asylum-seekers).
Sara concluded by saying, "This is just briefly our case. I have series of persecution cases and if I narrate them, it will take a whole book."
To contact Sara and David, write jgreynalds@aol.com and the e-mail will be forwarded.
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