Story highlights
Mariam Yehya Ibrahim says she simply wants to leave with her family, "not anything more"
"I gave birth chained. Not cuffs but chains on my legs," she says of her prison ordeal
Doctors fear her baby may not be able to walk unsupported when she grows up
Ibrahim denies using falsified papers to try to leave Sudan for the United States
What a week it’s been for Mariam Yehya Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian woman who initially faced a death sentence after refusing to renounce her faith.
She thought she was finally free Monday after a higher court ordered her release. A day later, she was back in police custody.
Now she faces a new charge, accused of falsifying travel documents, and has taken refuge in a safe house in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, amid concerns for her security.
In a phone interview with CNN, Ibrahim spoke of the ordeal of giving birth while in prison, her fears for her family and how she is facing a future full of unknowns.
Asked how she felt in prison, refused access to a hospital as the birth of her child neared, Ibrahim said, “I was only thinking about my children and how I was going to give birth. I was mostly scared of giving birth in prison.”
The 27-year-old had reason to be alarmed.
“I gave birth chained. Not cuffs but chains on my legs. I couldn’t open my legs so the women had to lift me off the table. I wasn’t attached to the table,” she said.
Doctors fear that the circumstances of the baby’s birth may have lasting consequences.
“I don’t know in the future whether she’ll need support to walk or not,” said Ibrahim.
She her husband, American Daniel Wani, were freed from custody Thursday after having been detained two days earlier upon arriving at the airport in Khartoum. They were trying to fly with their baby and toddler son to the United States.
Now they are waiting to see what happens in light of the latest allegations against Ibrahim, of traveling with falsified documents and giving false information.
“I’m currently in a safe place. It’s definitely safe but not comfortable,” Ibrahim said.
Sudanese Christian woman is in U.S. Embassy in Sudan
Persecuted as a ‘nonbeliever’
Ibrahim’s ordeal started when one of her relatives, a Muslim, filed a criminal complaint saying her family was shocked to find out she had married Wani, a Christian, after she was missing for several years.
A Sudanese court considered Ibrahim a Muslim because her father was Muslim. She was charged with adultery, because a Muslim woman’s marriage to a Christian man is illegal in Sudan. She was also charged with apostasy, accused of illegally renouncing what was alleged to be her original faith.
Convicted while about eight months pregnant, she gave birth about two weeks later in a women’s hospital in Khartoum.
She insists she has never been a Muslim – and says she was persecuted as a Christian while in prison.
“I’ve always been Christian. I couldn’t have been Muslim with the things they say and the way they treat me – with a different sheikh coming to speak to me every other time and women in prison saying all sorts of things, like ‘don’t eat the nonbeliever’s food’ and calling me a Christian,” she said. “There was all this talk and even the officers in the prison would join (in).”
A string of people, from politicians to humanitarian workers to lawmakers, came to visit while she was locked up with promises to help, she said, but none offered any real assistance. Eventually, following weeks of international controversy over her conviction for apostasy and adultery, it was overturned.
Ibrahim: My paperwork was ’100% correct’
Now, the Sudanese authorities have accused Ibrahim of trying to leave without the correct paperwork. Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services said that she had South Sudanese travel documents despite not being a citizen of South Sudan, and she was heading to the United States, which is not her native country.
But she is adamant that she “never forged any papers” and was entitled to travel on the documents she had.
“How can my paperwork be wrong? My paperwork came from the embassy. It’s 100% correct and it was approved by the South Sudan ambassador and the American ambassador,” she said.
“The South Sudanese embassy took responsibility and released the papers. It’s in my right to use the papers and have a South Sudanese passport because my husband is a South Sudanese citizen. He has an American passport and South Sudanese passport.”
Ibrahim had also been given a U.S. visa.
She described as “terrorizing” the way that Sudanese police officers took her and her husband, who uses a wheelchair, from the VIP departures hall as they waited to check in for their flight.
“We were scared and wondering what was wrong. They locked us in that room for four to five hours and the whole time we were trying to figure out what the problem was,” she said.
She claims that the charges were filed in court before the police even investigated the claims against her and her husband. When they finally figured out what the alleged offense was, she was shocked, Ibrahim said.
“I can’t even decide what I should do right now. I want to travel but at the same time I don’t want to travel. But the state I’m in right now means that I’m forced to. There’s a new problem every day about me leaving.”
Asked if the authorities were trying to make life difficult for her, Ibrahim replied, “I don’t know what their problem is.”
Faith in her husband
Ibrahim simply hopes that she can leave, together with her husband and their children.
“That’s exactly what I want. Not anything more,” she said.
But despite her experiences so far, she insists that she is not scared. She will put her faith in her husband, Ibrahim said, and count on him to protect the family.
“If anything happens to us, he’s responsible for us in the face of everyone else. This is protection and better for us. I’ll go wherever he takes us, it’s not a problem.”
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