Neema and Afrah, both Muslims from Eritrea’s Blin minority, fled Eritrea a year apart. Today they share a small house in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum with Neema’s husband and young daughter. They came together for an interview at the unmarked office of a small Islamic charity half an hour’s drive from central Khartoum.
Both women wore long dresses and the colorful headscarves, or tobs, common in Sudan. Both were shy about telling their stories and asked to do so through a translator, though every so often one or the other would correct the translation.
She feared the call-up for national service would turn into unending servitude in the army or on a public works project or state-run plantation.
