56 Boys Liberated from Slavery

(CSI) 56 boy slaves were liberated at the end of April from the cattle camps of Arab nomads in the borderlands between northern and southern Sudan. Their liberation was a joint action undertaken by CSI and the Arab-Dinka Peace Committee based at the borderland market town of Warawar. The boys had been abducted during government sponsored jihad slave raids against Black African, non-Muslim communities in northern Bahr El Ghazal. Upon releasing the slaves, the head of the Baggara cattle camps between the Bahr el Arab and Lol Rivers, Shegir Al Agar, claimed that the boys had been very happy with their masters, whom they affectionately called “father”. However, interviews with the boys revealed a clear pattern of physical and psychological abuse. They reported cases of beatings, stabbings, boy rape, racial insults, death threats, and forcible conversion to Islam.