Darfur War Breeds “Dirty Babies”

Posted on November 29, 2006
Filed Under Evil Terrorists, Darfur, Bashir, Female Species, UN, Culture |

I don’t even know how people who do this can live with themselves. Don’t they even have a conscience?

Fatma gently unwraps the bright, pink folds of her shawl, to reveal her baby girl

By Ishbel Matheson

Nov 24, 2006 — The sickly, three-month-old child, named Hawa, is the result of terrible atrocity.

When Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, came to Fatma’s home in January, they threatened to kill her father.

Fatma intervened but the gunmen turned on her.

“They said to me: ’You are a prostitute’,” she says.

“They pinned me down, one on my hands and one on my legs. The others took turns.”

Fatma was held for four hours and raped repeatedly.

They left her alive, but injured so badly, that she could not walk.

When her family eventually found her, they had to carry her home.

Marked for life

Two months later, Fatma realised that she was pregnant. She is just 15 years old.

“At first my father wanted to throw me out. But others pleaded with him.”

Her family moved to a refugee camp in the town of Kass, along with other survivors from her village.

But in this traditional society, Fatma and her baby are marked for life. The young mum tells how neighbours whisper about her.

“They say I’m a bad girl - that I had this Janjaweed baby. They say that I should be sent away,” she says.

As she speaks, baby Hawa frets and cries. She is malnourished and light as a feather.

Her mother presses her to her breast, but she has no milk.

We ask an older woman who is present, to try to help us soothe the baby.

She refuses, cursing the child as if she were a bad omen.

“She is calling the baby ‘a dirty girl’,” says Unicef’s Eman el-Tigani.

“Fatma has no future here. Islam does not allow for a baby to be killed. Otherwise this baby would be dead.”

Rape ’commonplace’

Fatma and her baby are victims of a brutal scorched-earth campaign in this remote region in western Sudan.

More than two million people have been driven from their lands, in what the UN has called it the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world”. Human rights groups say Arab militia backed by the Sudanese government are seizing the land from Africans in Darfur.

The Sudanese government says it has been fighting a rebellion. It denies funding and arming the militia.

Whatever the politics of the conflict, the crime of rape is disturbingly prevalent.

Every day, aid workers hear reports of women and girls from African tribes being abducted and gang-raped.

Shame amid love

Fatma is not the only one to be bearing the baby of a enemy fighter.

As she tells her story, other heavily pregnant women listen.

Hawa Seliman Mohammed, 24, is due to deliver any day now. She was grabbed by the Janjaweed militia, while taking a shower on the outskirts of her besieged village.

Like many victims, she believes rape is being used as a deliberate weapon in this war.

“They want to destroy everything,” she says. “By violating us, they want to make our men ashamed and to demoralise them.”

There is one report of a Darfuri woman who has tried to abandon her Janjaweed baby.

But Fatma loves her child. She rocks her, murmuring her name.

“I feel ashamed, because she is the child of a Janjaweed - and they are the ones who are carrying out this war against us. But I will keep her. I want my baby.”

And this is what the UN Human Rights Council has to say. We live in such a wonderful world!

Comments

19 Responses to “Darfur War Breeds “Dirty Babies””

  1. Precious on November 29th, 2006 1:47 pm

    How many more victims do they need until they finally admit? How many girls raped or children killed?? Maybe they’re waiting until there in no DARFUR.. right?! then there will be no problem! right?!

  2. tsedek on November 29th, 2006 2:04 pm

    it’s mind-boggling this can exist - and it’s even more mind-boggling how a whole world can be deceived this way….. a world without conscience.

  3. The Raccoon on November 29th, 2006 4:45 pm

    Tsedek - the world is not deceived. It just doesn’t give a flying fuck.

    Me and a friend were toying with the idea of turning assorted horrible African conflicts into TV shows. Just get one satellite with decent imaging equipment up above the more action-packed areas and broadcast what you film, live. With commentry along the lines of “This is Janjaweed militias destroying a village. Please note the horsemen chasing and killing escaping children”, or “from the uniforms, we can infer that the people raping this 12-years-old girl are government troops”. Stuff along these lines.

    Could be profitable, controvesial, and finally show people what’s really going on.

    Africa just doesn’t exist for most people in the world; people know what they see, and they don’t see Africa.

    All we need is something along the line of 9 million dollars for the sat+launch, and additional couple of millions for ads, PR, and getting a channel set up.

  4. tsedek on November 29th, 2006 5:09 pm

    good idea. it should come from human rights organizations though (for the dough) - maybe approach them (if they do care)….

  5. The Raccoon on November 29th, 2006 5:17 pm

    Tsedek - the same human rights orgs that keep ignoring Africa?

    I don’t think so. They’re part of the problem, not of the solution.

    The Benni Sella situation has just proved (again) the incredible power of the media. And also that media is not responsible enough for the sort of power it wields. This idea could really, really work. And make shitloads of money - people LOVE gladiators, just check out the ratings on wars.

    I keep trying to write a post about media, but it’s so huge I don’t even know where to start…

  6. Not Your Mama on November 29th, 2006 5:34 pm

    “At first my father wanted to throw me out. But others pleaded with him.”

    “They say I’m a bad girl - that I had this Janjaweed baby. They say that I should be sent away,” she says.

    “Fatma has no future here. Islam does not allow for a baby to be killed. Otherwise this baby would be dead.”

    Granted, a lot of the world really does not care about Africa, as Raccoon said. Then there are a lot of people who do give a f*ck but looking at the above quotes…wonder what if anything would they be saving if they could even figure out a way to do it.

    Personally, I wish I had a way to to protect this girl, her baby, and all the other girls like her. I don’t have one. If I did who would I protect them from? The Janjaweed or their own people who would castigate them for being victimized?

    It’s nearly impossible to help people who’s OWN PEOPLE place so little value on their lives, to a man who would disown his daughter who was raped while trying to save his life, to people who are just waiting for a baby to grow up so their religion will “allow them” to kill it…what do you say to something like that???

  7. The Raccoon on November 29th, 2006 5:42 pm

    NYM -

    You say “Fuck this multi-culti crap, let’s bring some positive change to these people”.

    You invest in education.

    You forcibly stop violence.

    You make reasonable laws, and you enforce them.

    You crucify the rapists, murderers, rebels and agitators along the highways and wrap their heads and hearts in pigskin.

    Then you wait for 2 generations until people get used to having good lives, respecting the law, respecting each other… and start giving them control over their lives.

    Or, alternatively, you let them rot.

    There’s no easy way out of it. But it is using the aforementioned tactics that Chenghis Khan created a huge empire in which a naked virgin could walk with a tray of gold coins in her arms from Baghdad to Shanghai unmolested.

  8. Drima on November 29th, 2006 9:01 pm

    NYM, the article was no doubt disgusting but I’m glad you noticed something else that disgusted me too and that’s of course the reaction of family and stupid women’s gossip. It’s the damn culture. They’re sadly programmed this way and like Raccoon said there is a way out of it but it won’t be easy.

    Raccoon, these are the things my dad specializes in (anthropology, sociology, folklore, traditions, norms etc.). It’s stuff like this that he researches and then tries to set up long term measures for removing the negative aspects of the culture while maintaining peoples identities at the same time. He’s done it for years and most of his measures do end up working. Tthey include much of what you mentioned. You don’t even need to wait for 2 generations.

  9. howie on November 29th, 2006 9:33 pm

    Guys-

    Of course this can all be changed…but “oi” it will be a whole lot of work. I think it a great sin to not try.

    If were the Irish though…I would leave it as it is.

  10. The Raccoon on November 29th, 2006 9:42 pm

    Drima - hmmm, sweet!

    Does he have any published papers in English and online?
    Or in English in any journals a Raccoon could get his paws on?

  11. Bec on November 29th, 2006 10:56 pm

    Drima, like your mom, your dad sounds wonderful. No wonder you’re such a good guy. I’d like to know about his work, too. I majored in anthropology and I’d always hoped it could be of some use in this way. Boy, do we need people like your dad these days.

  12. howie on November 30th, 2006 12:31 am

    There are lots of decent people out there…the indecent seem to get the headlines and often….the power.

  13. Freedom » Blog Archive » Human Rights Council or Murderers’ Council? - Part II on November 30th, 2006 5:24 am

    […] The Sudanese Thinker posted this heart wrenching story: Darfur War Breeds “Dirty Babies” […]

  14. Not Your Mama on November 30th, 2006 9:08 am

    “You invest in education.

    You forcibly stop violence.

    You make reasonable laws, and you enforce them.”

    I agree 100%, that is the only way. I was more pointing to the “why” of why it seems so many people don’t care. I question our commitment and willingness to use the resources we need to accomplish the task.

    Even observing the “Save Darfur” commercials that are airing in the US it cannot escape ones attention that they are using mainly “white, middle-class-looking” actors to read the list of atrocities and play the part of the victims. Not criticizing this…I’m willing to take whatever works and if that is the only way to make this palatable to America I’m not going to quibble.

    Drima, Sudan is far from the only place where there is an ingrained culture of ignorance and stupidity. Welcome to middle America.

  15. The Raccoon on November 30th, 2006 1:25 pm

    NYM -

    “I question our commitment and willingness to use the resources we need to accomplish the task.”

    And rightly so. Sudan is not a threat to the USA or the West in general. From a… strategic… POV it’s only interesting as a resource dump and a fairly minor point at which to thwart China (for the West) or to extend influence over oilfields and uranium mines (for China).

    There are not enough Darfurians in USA to make a powerful lobby and make people care.

    Hence my Gladiators idea.

  16. Bec on December 1st, 2006 2:07 am

    NYM, I agree about those commercials. Here it is, for those of you who haven’t seen it and are curious: Save Darfur.Org. They run it several times a day, every day, on CNN. I desperately want a solution to the crisis in Sudan, but this commercial sets my teeth on edge for some reason. Anyone else feel the same way?

    They have a scorecard on how Congress and different states are doing also at: Darfur Scores
    According to this, Middle America isn’t doing so bad, NYM. Sometimes I think Middle Americans get a bum rap. This, for example: Charity’s Political Divide. (I’m a Californian myself.)

  17. Hipster on December 3rd, 2006 11:32 am

    Darfur War Breeds “Dirty Babies”
    [….]I just couldn’t read this harrowing & heart-wrenching article on Drima’s blog without linking to it here[…..]

  18. Freedom » Blog Archive » Disrepecting Women, Officially! on March 20th, 2007 3:32 am

    […] The UN’s Commission on the Status of Women, a commission ostensibly established to defend women’s rights around the world, a commission established to smash old customs and cultural aberrations that consider women as mere chattel, has chosen instead to totally ignore that which they were supposed to deal with. Instead, a highly politicized elite took over the procedures of the Commission’s 51st Session and made a mockery of what the Commission is supposed to stand for. The systematic rape of women as a political weapon in the Congo, was not deemed a worthy subject. The rape of women in Darfur by the government backed Janjaweed, was not deemed a worthy subject. The rape of children in Southern Sudan by UN personnel, was not deemed a worthy subject. The culture that punishes the rape victim, so prevalent in various parts, of the world, was not deemed a worthy subject. The cultural attitudes that treat women as less than human, was not deemed a worthy subject. […]

  19. detamble on October 16th, 2007 10:20 am

    Rape is the lowest of all human actions. How can people do that?

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