Halima’s story: Estranged from life (2008)

Halima is a qualified doctor who is desperate to put her skills to use. But she is powerless to do so because the UK Government denies her right to be here. To make matters worse, she is estranged from her homeland of Sudan and therefore helpless to even respond to the plight of her own people.

Instead, her time is borne out in a one-room flat, tending to her baby boy, and fearful of a future that offers her no hope in the UK and a worse fate in Darfur, which she regretfully feels, is beyond saving.

Halima - not her real name - lived through the worst of the conflict that now grips her troubled country. Working in a hospital in Nyala, the capital of south Darfur, she witnessed the human fallout of the relentless attack on African people by the Arab militia and by a complicit Sudanese government.

At least 200,000 people are thought to have died in the region since 2003, with more than 2 million fleeing the area. For much of that time, Halima and her colleagues struggled to save the lives of those who narrowly escaped with their lives.

"I saw many cases of people burnt by the attacks, people whose villages had been set alight. They are stuck on my mind," says Halima, one of more than 250 Sudanese nationals referred to the MF in the past three years. "Many people died on the way to the hospital because they could not reach us. If you were lucky enough to escape without being shot at or burnt, you may make it, or you may then die of hunger."

Determined that the atrocities should not go unnoticed, Halima agreed to an interview with a national newspaper in early 2004 and spoke frankly of the country's problems.

"Many African people in the villages simply lived by their means because that is all they had, they did not engage in politics or even know anything about the government. When the attacks began, they were shocked, they didn't understand why the Arabs wanted to beat them. They never realised it was the government behind it.

"A month after the article appeared, with my name and details printed, security officials visited my home and asked why I had spoken to the newspaper. They threatened me, saying they would punish me if I spoke to anyone again. After that, I was transferred to a clinic in north Darfur because they didn't want me talking to the NGOs who were visiting the hospital."

Two months later, trouble spread to the north and once again, Halima found herself in the middle of the conflict when 15 girls, some as young as eight, were admitted to the clinic. Their primary school had been attacked and each girl had been raped.

Medicines San Frontiers and Save the Children arrived at the clinic to gather information about the incident. Wary of placing herself in danger yet desperate to end the suffering, Halima agreed to talk once promised she would not be named.

However, government officials soon became aware of the NGOs presence and it was not long before they came looking for Halima. She was tied up with rope, taken to the outskirts of the village, and raped by three men repeatedly over two days before they let her go. She was told it was a lesson in what rape really meant.

While she struggled to recover from her own ordeal, in December 2004, tragedy struck again when Halima's father was killed as the Janjaweed attacked the family's village. Halima went to the aid of the survivors at the local clinic and it was on a day that she was away from the home that the military came looking for her.

When she returned home, her mother and sister had gone and Halima, knowing that this time she would not be spared, fled the area. She walked for two days before finding a lorry driver that would take her to Khartoum, where she found an agent to get her to the UK.

Halima was certain that here she would find protection, that the undeniable crisis facing her country would not cast any doubt on her case. But now, two years later, she is still struggling against sceptical immigration officials who have twice refused her asylum.

"I came here because I thought people will surely understand. Unfortunately, I found this was a big dream, shattered. Now I'm here I can't do anything. I can't forget what happened to me because I'm still an asylum seeker. As an asylum seeker, you feel you can't complain, whether your neighbours are hostile to you or if people shout abuse at you in the street, because you don't want to attract trouble."

Despite all she hears of the continued suffering of the Sudanese, Halima wonders whether it would have been better to face the conflict with her people.

"I feel like there's no hope here, perhaps it would have been better to stay with my people. Instead, I am here suffering while they are there suffering. I want to help them but I have nothing, I can't even help myself. I don't know when this will end."