One survivor's story

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 30, 2005 9:31 PM PDT ∞

Sitting on the carpet of the small apartment she shares with her two children in San Diego, Fatuma Ali stared into the distance, remembering the day she was met at the Nairobi airport baggage claim by the officers who took her away in 1998.

"They call them Special Branch," she said. "The special police."

Ali, who holds a master's degree in demography from a British university, was an activist against the practice of female genital mutilation in Kenya and worked for a HIV/AIDS project funded by England.

Suspicious of her activities, the police took her in for "questioning" to the Nyati House, which Ali knew as a place where captives were tortured.

"When I got there, some officers came and accused me of being anti-government and recruiting opposition," Ali said in a soft voice. "I told them I hadn't done that. I was left in a room by myself."

Ali stayed in the dark, cold room overnight. The men returned the next day with someone who looked like a more senior officer. He claimed they had a list of people she had recruited, and he dumped a pail of cold water on her.

"I had nothing to confess to," Ali said.

Days passed as she was kept in the cold, dark room. The men came back daily, demanding a confession. Ali grew weak, she was freezing, and she could not eat anything without vomiting.

"They used electric shock on my feet," she said quietly, glancing down at her bare toes. The shocks left no scars, but Ali said she could feel the current jump from her soles to her skull.

"They didn't want to leave scars," she said. "They knew very well I used to work with international agencies."

Her tormenters found other ways of torturing Ali without leaving evidence, however. After days of sexual abuse and threats that she would be "circumcised" with a broken bottle, Ali said her mind began to cloud over, leaving her confused about what was real and what was imagined. In a daze, she eventually signed a confession and was released on her seventh day of captivity.

Once home, she could not sleep or think straight. Her family took her to a hospital, suspecting she had cerebral malaria.

Ali stayed in the hospital for two weeks, but her sense of personal danger grew as she feared retribution for the signed confession and more torture from government thugs. She fled to Tanzania, but still didn't feel safe and was getting sicker.

She returned to Kenya for more treatment and gradually began working part time for the same causes as before. Then one day, police stopped a bus she was on, took off some riders and shot them in the street. At that moment, she decided she had to leave the country.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks closed Kenya's airports temporarily, but Ali saw the tragedy as an opportunity: Police at the airport would be too busy looking for terrorists to notice her escape.

She left Sept. 16, a day after the airport reopened, to live with a stepsister in San Diego. An attorney set up a meeting with the Immigration and Nationalization Service, but Ali said they could not offer her asylum because she could not talk about her torture.

In 2002, an attorney told her about Survivors of Torture, International. The group found a psychiatrist who gave her medication and a therapist who helped her to eventually talk about her ordeal.

In January 2003, she was given asylum. Her daughter, Iman Vinya Habel, 14, and son Abdul Karim Juma, 7, live with her. Ali is going to school and works for the county.

Through Survivors of Torture, International, Ali said she was able to meet other local torture survivors, which helped her healing.

"You feel that you're not alone," she said. "They gave me back hope. I had lost hope."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at gwarth@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5410.