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By Tatiana Zarnowski, February 17, 2005

Last updated: Thursday, February 17, 2005 11:16 AM EST

Abuk Bak was 10 when the Arab militia came for the farm animals her family raised.

They attacked her village in southern Sudan, killing men and taking women and children on an all-day hike.

The next day, a man took Bak as his slave.

For the next 10 years, she worked for him for no pay.

"I take care animal. I do housework," Bak, now 29, told people at Dickinson College Wednesday evening as part of a panel on the human rights crisis in Sudan.

"When I saw I'm tired ... they beat me and they call me ... black slave," she said. Bak had no one to play with.

Another panelist, Jay Williams, explained that in Sudan, black Africans are the underclass to the ruling Arabs.

When she was 20, Bak's master raped her. She fled early the next morning, hopping aboard a truck without the driver's knowledge.

In the next town, Bak knew she could be sent back to slavery. Alone and afraid to talk to anyone, she finally saw someone who "look like me."

She confessed to the man that she escaped from slavery. He bought her a ticket to Khartoum, the nation's capital.

Couldn't find family

For three months she lived there. "I look for my family," she said. "I didn't find my family."

Still fearful that she could be recaptured and returned to the slave master, Bak married the younger brother of a man she knew. "You shouldn't marry somebody you don't know," she said, laughing.

But the arrangement has worked out well for the couple, who escaped to the United States two years later, in 2001, and now live in Boston with their three children.

Not everyone in southern Sudan was so fortunate.

Bloodshed in that region has killed about 2 million people and displaced another 5 million, Williams said. Tens of thousands of people were enslaved.

More recently, violence erupted in Darfur in western Sudan.

Long-time conflict

Daowd Salin, a native of Darfur, is only the second person in his large extended family to attend school. There, he learned English and classical Arabic.

Williams said the killing in Darfur began in February 2003 when the government quashed a rebellion there, but Salin said the conflict started much earlier, in 1980.

Salin hopes the United Nations "can take serious actions to stop the genocide. Our hope is from the people like you who are to share with us, to listen to our story that's really happening now."

Experts estimate that anywhere between 70,000 and 350,000 Darfurians died from violence, disease and famine, Williams said.

Williams, an American who graduated from Harvard and now lives in New York City, is a modern-day abolitionist. He told the audience his life changed when he attended a gospel concert to hear the music and realized it was a benefit concert for the crisis in Sudan.

He became an intern with the American Anti-Slavery Group and traveled to Sudan twice to help liberate slaves.

He urged attendees to act. "My remarks are going to center around you," he said. "This is not just an academic discussion. ... This is about real life."

Williams said people's indifference to the Sudan crisis stems from negative attitudes toward Africans.

2 peoples, 1 nation

Finding a solution for the crisis won't be easy, panelists acknowledged.

Splitting the country in two so black Africans can rule themselves would be ideal, but probably won't work, said moderator Jeffrey Laurenti.

Southern Sudan is rich in oil and the ground is more fertile than in the desert-like north. But the ruling Arabs live in the north and indigenous people live in the south.

So the ruling class won't give up southern Sudan without a fight.

"Nobody in Washington has suggested that the U.S. should send in troops," said Laurenti, who is senior adviser of the United Nations Foundation and deputy director of its United Nations and Global Security Initiative.

But Laurenti said U.S. citizens can ask their senators and representatives to support sending peacekeeping troops in to stop the genocide.

Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have "already said that they're willing to go in," he said.

He also urged people to ask their representatives to report Darfur crimes to the International Criminal Court.

Wednesday's panel was arranged by Abolish, a student organization that started last fall and has between 15 and 20 active members.

President Danielle Rosenau, a junior, says the community is invited to join the group. It meets at 7 p.m. Sundays in the Underground on campus.

On the Net:

www.savedarfur.org

www.icg.org

www.hrw.org

www.ushmm.org

www.iabolish.com