Halima writes in “Tears of the Desert," of growing up in a placid village in rural Darfur. Halima became a doctor, just as the genocide against black African tribes like her own began in 2003. Halima soon found herself treating heartbreaking cases. The janjaweed attacked a girls’ school near Halima’s clinic and raped dozens of the girls, aged 7 to 13. The first patient Halima tended to was 8 years old. Her face was bashed in and her insides torn apart. The girl was emitting a haunting sound: “a keening, empty wail kept coming from somewhere deep within her throat — over and over again." Soon afterward, two United Nations officials showed up at the clinic to gather information about the attack. Halima told them the truth. A few days later, the secret police kidnapped her. “You speak to the foreigners!” one man screamed at her. They told her that she had talked of rape but knew nothing about it — yet. For days they beat her, gang-raped her, cut her with knives, burned her with cigarettes, mocked her with racial epithets. One told her, “Now you know what rape is, you black dog.” Upon her release, a shattered Halima fled back to her native village, but it was soon attacked and burned — and her beloved father killed. Halima still doesn’t know what happened to her mother or brothers. Eventually she made her way to Britain, where she is seeking asylum, and even there Sudanese agents are trying to track her whereabouts.She is applying for a travel document and a visa to come to the United States to talk about her book, due to be released on September 9, but it seems unlikely that they will arrive in time for its release.
Students started a facebook group to try to help speed up the asylum process for her.
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