Former Sudanenes Slave Hunger Issues Halts Academics

Khalid Deng, former Sudanese slave has been free for two years. He was born into slavery after his mother’s abductor’s raped her in a cattle camp in north Sudan.

In 2007 Khalid was fitted for a school uniform and began attending primary school. Khalid has quit attending school because of his family’s limited resources for food , he has since found a job at a bakery.

According to Arek Anyiel Deng, Khalid’s mother, “He refuses to go to school because he says he cannot go without breakfast and also without lunch when he comes back from classes.” Daily Khalid’s rises early to head off to the market baker y to make bread. He earns two Sudanese pounds (SDG) , approximately 90 cents per day. Khalid said “I liked school but I used to have no lunch here so I buy food with that money,” he says somewhat defensively as the family laugh and tease him for trying to suggest that he gives them some of his earnings.

Ms. Anyiel reported her abduction to the BBC in 2007. Not long after the story was reported BBC listeners and readers sent money to the family. The school uniforms for Khalid and his younger sister Mariam were bought as a result of donations. Mariam says she is doing well in and receiving good marks. “I like all the subjects. The books are free,” she explains, but says finding the 5 SDG for fees each term is never easy.

Ms. Anyiel also used the donations to put a new thatch roof on her mud hut (tukul) and started a small business selling tea in the market. Unfortunately y Ms. Anyiel reported to the BBC that she no longer makes tea in the tukul, it burned down two years ago. She now sells water to the brick makers at the construction site for the secondary school. Ms. Anyiel is one of the approximate 4,000 slaves returned home by 2008 because of the efforts of groups working with the Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC). The organization is no longer operational because of funding issues.

Source: BBC