Book Creator

1996

By: Nidal Ali

It was midnight when my uncle was getting water from the river. He suddenly overheard a gunshot ¨BOOM¨. He dropped the water container and ran to the village. He told everyone that they are under attack by the militia. And that's how everything suddenly started in 1996. In 1996, the Janjaweed militia came to Western Sudan, my village. They stole everything, like animals and food. They killed many people. Some people were burned alive, some got injured. After the militia burned thousands of homes and got what they wanted, they left. A lot of my people ran away to Chad, Al-Junaynah, and other cities to hide from the militia. The militia hated us because they saw us as weak and easy to control. Our skin was darker, our cultures were different, and so they decided to destroy us. Every year the militia comes back again to Western Sudan to hurt us. The militia became relentless and killed many more people. In early 2003, the militia and the Sudanese president, Omar Al-Bashir, were involved in an army agreement with the two rebel groups. These groups worked together and carried on war with my people. Omar Al-Bashir gave the militia army free weapons. The president told the militia army to go back again to attack my villages and kill all the people. In August, the militia army came to my village and did the same thing. By that time my whole family was there. They didn't know what to do. Eventually, my whole family and forty-thousand people ran away from Western Sudan. In May 2004, my family and half of my villagers reached the camp in Chad. The U.N. would announce who's staying, by group. They called my family and gave them a place to stay. In June, my family started to get their things ready to travel to Al-Junaynah. That day was the saddest. It was the last time that my parents saw their family. A few weeks went by, they reached Al-Junaynah safely. After months and months went by, they traveled to Kenya in East Africa by car. When they reached Kenya, they stayed in camp. There were a lot of people from different cultures. After a few months went by, my parents found a place and built a house there. Kenya is a peaceful place. There isn’t any war. You get to be free. Us, Western Sudanese, were given this life because we are strong enough to live it.

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