They Raped Us Before We Cross Borders

2024-08-13 · Ho Chanh Nghia

Originally published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/raped-us-before-we-cross-borders-khanh-pham-shcbc/

They Raped Us Before We Cross Borders

“They [the gunmen] separated the men from the women,” Kani, 17, said. “Then three of them ordered all the four girls who made the journey to move into a small tent [the armed men had erected near the checkpoint].

“They took turns to rape us at gunpoint,” said Kani, who spoke to Al Jazeera from the home of a local legumes farmer in the Nigerien border town of Ayourou, a town on the border with Mali, where many Malian refugees have settled in recent years and where she has been living for the past several weeks since crossing into Niger.

Dressed in a brown headscarf and colourful dress, the teenager seemed frightened and depressed, her head bowed, as she spoke.

Since the ordeal, she said, she has become terrified whenever she sees a man with a gun.

“Policemen and soldiers scare me because they remind me of the people who raped me.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/8/10/they-rape-us-before-we-can-cross-women-girls-fleeing-violence-in-mali

Did you know about the Vietnamese refugee leaving Vietnam by boat? Often picked up by sea pirates? Where the women are raped in front of the men at gun point? and Shot in front of the mend? I met a man who saw his wife raped in front of him and killed in front of him. How do you live the rest of your life after such a thing?

Police and soldiers does not always equal laws and order. Terrorists also wear uniforms.