Sudanese 'eyewitness to genocide' gets asylum
By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
At a hearing yesterday in U.S. Immigration Court, all Hashim Adam Mersal had to do to win political asylum was prove that he is who he says he is.
However, as a refugee from the violence-torn Darfur region of Sudan, that isn't as easy as it sounds.
The only verification of his identity that the 26-year-old has is a birth certificate and a citizenship paper that includes a picture of Mr. Mersal when he was 13 years old.
But those two documents, combined with an e-mail sent from a refugee camp in Sudan that states that Mr. Mersal's family members are there, convinced the U.S. government and the judge that the young man deserved asylum.
Provided the papers he submitted are authenticated by the government, Mr. Mersal will be permitted to stay in the United States.
He may be the first Darfur refugee in the United States to win asylum, said his attorney, Robert Whitehill.
"That's what makes this case important -- he was an eyewitness to the genocide," he said.
According to SaveDarfur.org, more than 400,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been chased from their homes during the past three years in that region of Africa.
The janjaweed -- or Arab militias working for the Sudanese government to rid the country of certain ethnic groups -- arrived in Mr. Mersal's village in August 2003. They ransacked the community of 25 families, raped the women and killed many men, including his father and brother, he said. After that, Mr. Mersal's mother asked her son to take the family's only valuable possession, its cattle, and walk them to safety. He walked for two days before crossing the border into Chad.
He spent two years there before coming to the United States on May 31, 2005, with a false diplomatic passport from Chad.
Mr. Mersal was arrested in July 2005 while driving with other Sudanese men on Interstate 80. He was charged with illegal entry into this country, a charge that has already been settled, Mr. Whitehill said.
From the outset of the three-hour hearing, the government's attorney, Ira Mazer, said he would not oppose Mr. Mersal's asylum if he truly is from Darfur.
"The government believes if you are truly Sudanese, and truly from the Darfur region, you deserve asylum," he said.
And the judge agreed.
"If he is who he says he is, he has an asylum grant," said Judge Miriam Mills.
Sometimes, though, Mr. Mazer said, people from other countries falsely claim to be from Darfur to gain asylum.
Mr. Mersal tried to prove he is a member of the Zaghawa tribe of Darfur by lifting his shirt to show the judge scars on his abdomen. He was cut with a knife as a child to denote his membership, he said.
Yesterday's hearing was conducted through televideo -- with the judge, interpreter and government attorney in Philadelphia. Only Mr. Mersal, Mr. Whitehill, and Khadra Mohammed, from the Pittsburgh Refugee Center, attended at the Department of Homeland Security's South Side location.
Mr. Mersal, who primarily speaks Zaghawa -- the language of his tribe -- spoke Arabic for the hearing.
Dressed in a black suit with a light green shirt unbuttoned at the collar, he spoke softly. He described to the court how he became a target of the militia.
"The government of Sudan is looking for me because I refused to be drafted," he said. "There's an ongoing genocide. I'm a black man from Zaghawa. We know what kind of fate awaits us."
At one point, he broke down crying. The judge called a brief recess.
Mr. Mersal told Judge Mills that he feared being returned to Sudan.
"I think I will be killed," he said. "We are aggrieved people. We are defenseless. Our houses were burned. Our women were raped."
He only recently learned that his 14 brothers and sisters and two mothers -- it is a polygamist society -- are in the Sudanese refugee camp. Mr. Whitehill said that he will be making an application with the U.S. government to have Mr. Mersal's family join him in this country, though he's unsure how long that process will take.
Mr. Mersal, who has not decided if he will make his home in Pittsburgh or in Fort Wayne, Ind., where there are about 17 Zaghawan families, plans to speak out against the genocide in Sudan and to try to raise awareness of it around the world
By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
At a hearing yesterday in U.S. Immigration Court, all Hashim Adam Mersal had to do to win political asylum was prove that he is who he says he is.
However, as a refugee from the violence-torn Darfur region of Sudan, that isn't as easy as it sounds.
The only verification of his identity that the 26-year-old has is a birth certificate and a citizenship paper that includes a picture of Mr. Mersal when he was 13 years old.
But those two documents, combined with an e-mail sent from a refugee camp in Sudan that states that Mr. Mersal's family members are there, convinced the U.S. government and the judge that the young man deserved asylum.
Provided the papers he submitted are authenticated by the government, Mr. Mersal will be permitted to stay in the United States.
He may be the first Darfur refugee in the United States to win asylum, said his attorney, Robert Whitehill.
"That's what makes this case important -- he was an eyewitness to the genocide," he said.
According to SaveDarfur.org, more than 400,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been chased from their homes during the past three years in that region of Africa.
The janjaweed -- or Arab militias working for the Sudanese government to rid the country of certain ethnic groups -- arrived in Mr. Mersal's village in August 2003. They ransacked the community of 25 families, raped the women and killed many men, including his father and brother, he said. After that, Mr. Mersal's mother asked her son to take the family's only valuable possession, its cattle, and walk them to safety. He walked for two days before crossing the border into Chad.
He spent two years there before coming to the United States on May 31, 2005, with a false diplomatic passport from Chad.
Mr. Mersal was arrested in July 2005 while driving with other Sudanese men on Interstate 80. He was charged with illegal entry into this country, a charge that has already been settled, Mr. Whitehill said.
From the outset of the three-hour hearing, the government's attorney, Ira Mazer, said he would not oppose Mr. Mersal's asylum if he truly is from Darfur.
"The government believes if you are truly Sudanese, and truly from the Darfur region, you deserve asylum," he said.
And the judge agreed.
"If he is who he says he is, he has an asylum grant," said Judge Miriam Mills.
Sometimes, though, Mr. Mazer said, people from other countries falsely claim to be from Darfur to gain asylum.
Mr. Mersal tried to prove he is a member of the Zaghawa tribe of Darfur by lifting his shirt to show the judge scars on his abdomen. He was cut with a knife as a child to denote his membership, he said.
Yesterday's hearing was conducted through televideo -- with the judge, interpreter and government attorney in Philadelphia. Only Mr. Mersal, Mr. Whitehill, and Khadra Mohammed, from the Pittsburgh Refugee Center, attended at the Department of Homeland Security's South Side location.
Mr. Mersal, who primarily speaks Zaghawa -- the language of his tribe -- spoke Arabic for the hearing.
Dressed in a black suit with a light green shirt unbuttoned at the collar, he spoke softly. He described to the court how he became a target of the militia.
"The government of Sudan is looking for me because I refused to be drafted," he said. "There's an ongoing genocide. I'm a black man from Zaghawa. We know what kind of fate awaits us."
At one point, he broke down crying. The judge called a brief recess.
Mr. Mersal told Judge Mills that he feared being returned to Sudan.
"I think I will be killed," he said. "We are aggrieved people. We are defenseless. Our houses were burned. Our women were raped."
He only recently learned that his 14 brothers and sisters and two mothers -- it is a polygamist society -- are in the Sudanese refugee camp. Mr. Whitehill said that he will be making an application with the U.S. government to have Mr. Mersal's family join him in this country, though he's unsure how long that process will take.
Mr. Mersal, who has not decided if he will make his home in Pittsburgh or in Fort Wayne, Ind., where there are about 17 Zaghawan families, plans to speak out against the genocide in Sudan and to try to raise awareness of it around the world
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