Women human rights defenders with the Support Sudan Campaign lost everything, but they did not lose their determination to help others.A number of them have shared their stories over the past year, reflecting the magnitude of the tragedy caused by the Sudan war: poverty, death, hunger, disease, displacement, and asylum.
Wassal Hamad al-Nile, a university student and activist, was forced to leave her home in Khartoum’s Bahri neighbourhood.
“We contracted a number of diseases due to the unhealthy environment and the lack of food, and we couldn’t find medicine,” she says. This ultimately affected her father’s health, as the family had no money to buy him medicine. He was later transferred to Shendi Education Hospital but died while undergoing treatment. “We lost hope of finding a decent place that preserves our humanity and what remains of our dignity,” she says. Al-Nile and her family moved to the village of Um al-Tayyur, where they now live in a rented room.
Nahla Youssef, head of the Coalition of Women Human Rights Defenders in Darfur, fled the city of Nyala with her 11-year-old son. They went through Juba before settling in Kampala, Uganda.
“At the end of May, I was forced to leave Sudan for a safer place,” Youssef says. “As I left, the Rapid Support Forces [RSF] took over my house and most of the houses and streets in my neighbourhood.”
With three of her colleagues, they began the journey to the city of Al-Daein hoping to finally reach Abu Matariq, but the roads were unsafe. “We were exposed to random shooting by stragglers, and we felt that someone was following us to rob us,” she says. They decided to change course and left for Kampala, Uganda, where they found a safe place to stay. It is from here that Youssef continues her work in assisting women human rights defenders….
But these harsh experiences have not prevented them from supporting their communities. “Despite the stress and oppression caused by the war, I [still] help women and children with disabilities, as this is my speciality and work that I have been doing for years,” Mahjoub says.
It is the same situation for Tahani Abass, founder of NORA, an activist organisation against gender-based violence, who is also a member of the No Oppression of Women Initiative. She found refuge in Madni city, Gezira State, after she fled the war with her two children.
She had started working again, consulting with doctors, human rights defenders, and civil society organisations on how to help people affected by the war, until fighting spread there last December.
Women human rights defenders at risk in Darfur
Human rights defenders are often targeted, which forces them to hide and reduce their movement or change their place of residence for fear of arrest or death.
Youssef, head of the Alliance of Women Human Rights Defenders in Darfur, says the war has affected women defenders because some families see human rights work as a great risk for women, especially in displacement camps. She adds that some community elders have gone to the extent of warning families about women defenders.
“The war affected me psychologically, she says. “I was displaced and left the country [Sudan] with my children, at a time when my family depends on me. I did not find a stable job sufficient for housing, expenses, children’s studies and treatment, and I cannot return to my country.”
Youssef says many other women human rights defenders are subjected to bullying and smear campaigns on the Internet as a result of their demands to stop the war, while others have been killed.
One of them is Bahjaa Abdelaa Abdelaa, who before her death, had been sent death threats for monitoring rape cases.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 