ONCE UPON A TIME

MOST OF YOU WILL SEE HOW LONG THIS STORY IS AND BYPASS IT, OR SCROLL DOWN AND WRITE SOMETHING WITHOUT READING IT AT ALL...IT IS YOUR LOSS. BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO TRULY DO READ IT, I LOVE YOU!

        Once upon a time...

I guess this is how I would begin if I was writing a fiction novel or a story for a child's book, and maybe I would end on "...and they lived happily ever after." Unfortunately reality is too cruel for happily ever after. The world we live in is cold and unforgiving. As you sit in your comfortable chair and read this story, a mass murder of children is carried out somewhere on earth.

        My name is Fatimah Suliman. I live in a small village located in a remote part of southern Sudan.

        I was raped when I was 10 years old. Thugs from the north came to my village and attacked all of us, raping all the women, stealing our food, killing most of our men, and taking our belongings. They said they were soldiers fighting for God. They said that this is their land and we are there unlawfully. Three of these thugs came into our hut where I, my mother, and two sisters were hiding. First, they raped my mother. They told us that if we didn't watch they would kill her after they rape her. So we watched. They tore off her clothes but she never cried or looked at us. She just froze with a black stare and not a word or a cry of pain. The three men took turns raping her for an hour. To us it seemed like an eternity. We sat there watching and praying that soon we would wake up from this nightmare. Neither one of us dared to close our eyes for fear of our mother being killed. When they finished raping her they stormed through our place eating the food my mother had prepared for us and drinking all of the boiled water. One of the thugs looked at me and asked how old I was. I said I was 10 and he smiled from ear to ear. Then he turned to his fellow thugs and said "the younger, the better". He ordered me to come closer to him. For the first time my mother cried out and cussed at the men. She screamed like a mad woman, standing in front of us trying to protect us from their hands. The thug who asked for my age got very angry and punched my mother in her stomach with all of his strength. He hit her repeatedly in the face with the back of his rifle until she fell to the floor soaked in blood. My sisters and I begged him to stop but he was deaf to our cries. He delivered one final blow to her head and all we heard was this "crack" sound. We saw blood pouring out of her head as she closed her eyes. This was the end of her misery. Now it was our turn. I was the first one to be raped. They made my sisters watch. After the three thugs raped me, six of their friends came in to joined them. I lost count after twenty. That night my sisters and I were their sex slaves. They did whatever they wanted and no one was there to stop them. I cried for my father and my older brother. I wondered where they were. Why had they abandoned us, why weren't they here to protect us, were they dead like my mother? When morning came these "soldiers of God" started burning all of the huts. Most of the people were dead, but some were still alive. I could hear their voices and the burning of their flesh. Our hut was the last to be burned. I though we were finished. My sisters and I were to be burned alive in our own home. They made us stand outside where I saw about 30 or 40 little children gathered together. One of the thugs ordered them to go inside our hut. After all of the children were in, the doors were tightly shut. Gasoline was poured all over our home and a torch thrown onto the roof. Instantly the entire hut lit up with wild fire. I heard them cry "mommy", "daddy", "papa", "mamma"...their cries were too loud, frantic, horrified, and desperate. The little children burned and burned, and burned...and then there was silence. I kept pinching my self. Something hot was running down my legs. It was blood but I felt no pain. I was numb. Numb in my heart, numb in my soul, just numb. I could no longer feel. The thugs took my sisters away in their cars and left me all alone. I ran after their trucks. I screamed for them to leave my sisters alone or kill me. One of the cars stopped. The window of the passenger sit rolled down and a man said to me, "We left you alive so that you can tell of this story to those who are to come. Tell of our power and our will to protect our land. Tell them what happens when they come to steal and live in a land that does not belong to them." I could not go back to that village. I was no longer a human.
       
        I ran away to a neighboring village where my aunt and uncle lived. I told them that thugs had killed my family but I never told them anything more. No matter how many times they asked, I kept to the same made up story. I told them I blacked out and saw noting. When I woke up everyone was dead. I saw nothing, I felt nothing, I heard nothing.
       
        Today I am 34 years old and HIV/AIDS positive. Miraculously I birthed no children by my rapists. I thank God for that....if there is a God. My disease has progressed beyond medicinal treatment and the doctors have done all they can. They tell me my death is near. What they don't know is that I am already dead. I died at age 10. I died with my mother, I died with my father, I died with my brother, I burned with the little children. My body is alive but my soul is deceased...and what's a living body with a dead soul? 

Author's Note

This is a story I have heard personally from women who have been through what Fatimah has been through. Sadly, this is not something that happens once. It happens every day, even right now as you read this. They want their voices to be heard, their stories to be read, they want the rest of the world to know about them. The conflict between northern and southern Sudan is ongoing. Educate yourself, even if you are not physically able to help them. This is something the world needs to know about. I ask you to spread the word, but most of all...PRAY!

Reviews

[Kaylor Mason]

Wow. I was enraptured by the first line, and I read the whole thing, slowly and carefully. My throat was constricted too much for words at the end. Your voice--Fatimah's voice--is so powerful that it can't be silenced; it never will, no matter what

[Kaylor Mason]

As graphic as it is, you were right to write about it. Evil like this shouldn't be covered up with blissful ignorance. Not ever

[EMMIE]

Thank you so much, I am glad you read and really understood the message I am trying to give out. And thanks for all of your other reviews, I will get to your works ASAP! But first I need sleep lol. Thanks much!

[Chris]

You speak well Emmie. A couple of typo's but you have a good handle on the language.

You told a tale with specific emotional impact and addressed the "buttons" that would have your readers' imaginations add the darknesses for you.

And gave it a moral cause and a surviving heroine...

Good writer's fuel perceptions as they want them to be had. You did well.

[light and ashes]

This was extremely hard for me to read...The poignantness and the imagery was almost too much for me to bare. "I could not go back to the village. I was no longer human." "What they don't know is that I am already dead. I died at age 10. I died with my mother, I died with my father, I died with my brother, I burned with the little children. My body is alive but my soul is deceased...and what's a living body with a dead soul?" Oh how much I get this statement. Unfortunatly you are right this happens everyday every minute even right now in this very cruel world...Ugh its so sicking to think about. You were right their voices need to be heard. Maybe we could send our soldiers there to protect them or maybe evucate them to someone where else. That probably wouldn't work out but its just a suggestion. They will be in my prayers for sure.

[joshua deathdealer]

I read this and it feels me with much emotions. It's so sad that people actually go through this type of thing every second of everyday. A very moving and humanitarian piece which is defiantly needed during these dark times. I love it.

[WhiteWillow]

Heartwrenching doesn't even begin to describe what I feel.

I have to say though, after reading this, of all the mixed emotions flooding through me, the greatest is helplessness. It doesn't seem right that I can sit at my kitchen counter and eat a huge meal, with the knowledge that I'm completely safe and comfortable, while women on the same planet, continents away, face these unbelievable atrocities.

Thank you for the well written, informative, and touching piece.

[EmpressPoetess]

This is very hard to read, as a rape victim at age 9, I can actually relate to some of this. Gladly Jehovah God has made a way out, with Jesus as the anointed King of his kingdom, we can be sure that He will keep His promises recorded in Revelation 21:3-7 He will make all things new, the former things will not even be brought to mind anymore. Faith in God's promises helps endure any trials and tribulations this world can heap upon us. This Earth, our home, is long over due for a grand transformation! Psalm 37:9-11, 17, and 29.

[Neva Flores Smith - Cha..]

Fatimah did the right thing with her silence. Their story cannot be told in the glory they wished it to be. A brave little girl and a blessed woman, maybe not on this Earth but in the hereafter.

[Perdition]

It IS well written and the plate served up here is forever stuck in the bile. I am glad there are guardians over such things. Their lives are the better prayers over time. Thanks for this~