CLEVELAND, Ohio — Eritrea is commonly dubbed “the North Korea of Africa” for its repressive policies that have forced thousands of residents to flee that country. Among them is Dawit, who does not want his full name used for fear of government retribution against family members still living there.
Dawit said he was a teacher with a college degree in business management, but also a member of the Pentecostal Christian Church, which was outlawed by the government in 2010.
Because of that membership, Dawit said he was imprisoned, tortured and beaten until he managed to escape and make his way to the U.S. by way of Mexico. He was caught coming into Texas and transferred to a detention facility in Ohio, where he heard about Catholic Charities’ legal aid services.
His petition for asylum was granted last March, and he was able to find a job and housing (with an Eritrean family) in Cleveland with the assistance of Catholic Charities.
- Read more: Ohio Center for Survivors of Torture aids 175 refugees
“I was lucky to come here,” he said. “They (Catholic Charities) helped me with everything. Once I came here I had a place to live, a job, and a place to recover my mind.”
His case for asylum was argued by Adriana Coppola, immigration staff attorney, who said only a third of such requests are usually granted. Dawit’s case was based on religious persecution.
Another success story involves Yvon Kipata, 56, who was jailed and beaten by government troops during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo that started in 1998. He and his wife and six children were able to escape, and spent 15 years living in a refugee camp before coming to the U.S.
African torture survivor aided in Cleveland
Kipata recently told how he was a businessman, running boats on Lake Tanganyka, when his operation was taken over by government troops.
“We lived like slaves,” he said. “They forced you to work for them for nothing.”
Kipata said that when his pregnant wife was identified as a Tutsi, a group that sided with rebel forces during the war, she was briefly jailed. Then, a soldier who belonged to the same tribe as Kipata was able to sneak her and their children out of the country.
Kipata was not able to go along and was imprisoned. He said he was forced to work and was regularly beaten. “It was very bad,” he said. “It’s pain, but you must stay strong. But that is not easy. You try.”
One day, when a guard shot another soldier in a dispute, Kipata was able to take advantage of the resulting confusion and escape, later re-joining his family.
They have been in Cleveland for nearly a year. Catholic Charities arranged for housing, and helped Kipata get a job as a food porter with Sodexo at the Cleveland Clinic.
“It’s a good life here,” Kipata said. “I like Ohio and Cleveland.
“I thank the whole Catholic Charities, the staff, for what they do for us,” he added.
Fatima Adam, 40, fled from her village in the Republic of Sudan in 2004 after it was attacked by counter-insurgency militia forces, and her father, a farmer, was shot to death. The nation that has been wracked by war and famine had more than 1 million refugees like Adam last year.
Fatima Adam aided after fleeing horrors of Sudan
“The government gives the guns to the (militia) and tell them to go out and kill all the black people, because we are black and not Arab,” Adam recently recalled.
She escaped with her mother, brothers and sisters to a refugee camp in Sudan, but even there, safety was not assured. Adam said women who left the camp to gather firewood were often attacked, beaten and raped. “The men, they just kill them,” she said.
Her legs still bother her from the beatings she suffered.
She and her family spent eight years in the camp before medical problems forced her to seek attention in the country’s capital, Khartoum.
Then, she and her brother decided to seek out a country “that had good health and a safe place (where) no one can hurt you,” she said.
They came to Cleveland in 2015, and Catholic Charities helped her with job training, employment, finding a residence, learning the language and counseling for the memories that still linger.
“It was bothering me. Always I was remembering my dad, our village,” she said.
Working, and the counseling, has helped. “Yeah, I’m a little better,” Adam said. “It’s just sometimes . . . You cannot forget these things that happened. You cannot forget.”
Adam, who is a leather worker for Fount in Cleveland, hopes to obtain her U.S. citizenship in five years, then bring the rest of her family from Sudan to America.
“Cleveland is very, very nice because people are very good here. Everything is safe here,” she said. “I’m very happy to be here.”
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