Tears of the Desert: One woman's true story of surviving the horrors of Darfur

March 10 2010 , Written by thediversetraveller Published on #Africa, #Book, #Darfur, #escape, #Islam, #Memoir, #Politics, #Rape, #Recommendations & Rants (tips, links and reviews), #Religion, #Sudan, #Torture, #woman, #women of colour

Since I won't be travelling abroad anytime soon, I have turned to my travel library to 'Travel Buy the Book'.

Over two days, I left the cold of my NW London home and travelled to hot and troubled Sudan - Darfur to be exact; courtesy of Halima Bashir's memoir - Tears of the Desert: One Woman's True Story of Surviving the Horrors of Darfur.

Pleasant beginnings

I soon became consumed with Halima's life, especially the description of her happy childhood years in pre-conflict Dafur. Though her family life, in many ways was traditionally Sudanese, her father sent Halima (his first child) to school (she ultimately became a doctor), rather than marry her off to the local shepherd.

Like many children, who live in countries of different races and / or tribes, Halima soon learnt that the simple, Darfur village life she was living was different from the more comfortable life of her Arab school mates and teachers, many who saw the black Sudanese as less than dogs, only good for work as servants. The older Halima got the more this divide became apparent to her, as along with her Black friends suffered various depths of discrimination.

Throughout her time in the Darfur school system, at the University of Khartoum, and through her early life as a village doctor, at the age of twenty-four she was the village's first qualified doctor Halima's determination to survive is evident.

Difficult times

Halima's passion to defend her people, even at the risk of her own (and friends and family) safety, led to her being savagly attacked by the Arab militias. And in January 2004 they attacked people in her village.

She treated traumatised victims of the Janjaweed attacks, and was sickened by what she saw. She decided to speak out in a Sudanese newspaper and to the UN charities. Then the secret police came for her. For days Halima was interrogated and subjected to unspeakable torture. She finally escaped but the nightmare just seemed to follow her.

You get some sense of what Halima and her village went through via the vivid descriptions of the assault and rape of many young girls (some under six years old) as the conflict gained momentum. These dreaful scenes stayed in my mind for days, but I couldn't put the book down.

Like many I have read and seen Darfur in newspaper, magazine and on TV, but it is Halima's story - told by a woman who who lived through it - that made me really see the personal effect of the Darfur conflict.

The book unwinds at a gentle pace, as Halima flees Sudan and enters the UK illegally. While the UK asylum system may leave much to be desired, and was not a pleasant process for either Halima or her husband, her story's end surprisingly felt like a rant against the system. Fortunately this was my only disappointment.

I give this book 7/10 for the vivid, yet difficult, story Halima shares with us, opening our eyes to the plight of women in Darfur.

What can we do

The conflict in Darfur is a reality, often made anonymous by the constant violence of news reports, and by the (sadly) many other world conflicts. However, like Halima, many women and young girls are being raped and mutilated in Dafur everyday. To help stop the rape of women in conflict zones around the world please visit the amnesty website.

For more about Darfur visit Oxfam: Using the stories of young people caught up in the conflict, this resource helps you to introduce the realities of life in Darfur to students aged 13+.