Try imagining an Italian girl who goes to middle school with her dreams and hopes, still sweet but with the initial signs of becoming a woman. Just like it is inconceivable that a women who is not yet twenty years old finds herself living in slavery in one of the richest, libertarian and biggest cities in the world.
She managed to escape in London and found safety and a minimum of interior serenity, which proves that our culture and society, without wanting to claim superiority over others, offer certain assurances in terms of protecting human rights that, objectively, do not exist elsewhere. Mende is just one of the many Sudanese and South Sudanese people who have suffered because of conflict and civil unrest. Today, Mende is relying on a MAF flight to return home. She is travelling with Baroness Caroline Cox.
Their purpose is to provide aid and advocacy to alleviate suffering in Sudan and South Sudan. These passengers are truly depending on MAF to safely transport them back and forth across the country. Baroness Caroline Cox is no stranger to these war torn villages. She has visited these areas of conflict on numerous occasions, each time to bring global awareness to the suffering of the people in horrific situations. But I consider it a great privilege, so how do I use it?
We have been here many times during the previous war, the needs here are still enormous. Caroline is passionate about bringing awareness and aid to this legacy of destruction and devastation. Though there is meant to be a cease fire, the government of Sudan regularly breaks the cease fire. Khartoum is still shelling innocent civilians, flying Antonov airplanes overhead and bombing schools, markets, and clinics. The people must travel two to three hours down and back up the mountain simply to fetch water for drinking and washing.
I think hope and determination helped me to survive during that difficult time. With the help of private donators, Mende made the journey back to Sudan. Incredibly she was able to fly to a safe region of the Nuba Mountains where she met with her family for the first time since her abduction. Damien Lewis accompanied her on this perilous and emotionally charged trip, once again co-authoring a second book about this journey with Mende called Freedom.
This compelling book shares with us the feelings and emotions she experienced reuniting with her family and her homeland. The reason being is because her story is timeless. She was a beaten and raped teenage girl with nothing but the shirt on her back. For her formative years she was called Abda, which means slave or person with no name. She was someone who had every reason to give up on life.
But she did not. She had faith and hope. She instructed me exactly what to say to embassy officials.
I was told to say I was treated well. Mrs Koronky was much kinder to me in that she did not beat me. But I had to work very hard looking after the house and five children. She retained my passport. I was not allowed to leave the house alone apart from to take rubbish to the bin.
I was not paid anything, ever. I was depressed and desperate. Extract from press release by Abdel al Koronky after the Sunday Telegraph retracted its article:.
My family's Sudanese au pair was claimed to be a slave in order to assist her claim for asylum. There is no doubt in my mind that my country was the ultimate target. Sudan has been the focus for an unprecedented disinformation and propaganda campaign. My role at the embassy was to analyse and address this disinformation.
Little did I expect to be personally caught up in this. My vindication is also a vindication for Sudan. It is also a victory for those within the developing world who have so often been subjected to irresponsible and baseless claims by powerful first world media outlets. The media have undoubtedly served to artificially prolong the awful agony of conflict in my country.
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