16/03/2026
The Day My Cross Was Taken!
There was a time in my childhood when life was extremely difficult, and survival itself was a daily struggle. My father worked in the Popular Armed Forces in Sudan and was often deployed to operational areas in the southern part of the country. Because of this, most of the responsibility for raising the family fell on my mother.
To support us, she sold a local drink known as marisa Abit (Koti), a type of traditional sorghum brew (مريسة ابيضّ).
My father’s salary was never enough to cover the needs of the family, so my mother did whatever she could to help us survive.
At that time, I was still a young boy.
One day, repair work was being done at our house, something like a community work gathering(نفير). My two uncles were there: my older uncle, Henry, and my younger uncle, Philip. Some friends had also joined them, and my mother prepared marisa for the group.
Uncle Henry was not drinking that day because he was sick and suffering from stomach problems.
At some point, my mother asked me to go to the market to bring baobab to make baobab juice for Uncle Henry. The market was not far from our home, but the road to it passed through the main street where several government ministries were located. In those days, it was common to see a police officer sitting at the entrance of each ministry building.
I went to the market, bought the baobab (القونقوليز), and began walking back home.
As I passed one of the ministry buildings, a police officer sitting at the entrance called out to me.
“Come here,” he said.
I walked toward him, not knowing what he wanted.
He looked at me and noticed the cross hanging around my neck. That cross was very special to me. It was a gift from my church, given to us during our Confirmation one of the sacred sacraments in our faith.
Without asking permission and without any reason, the officer grabbed the cross and ripped it from my neck.
He threw it on the ground and ordered me to leave.
I was shocked.
Tears immediately filled my eyes. I felt humiliated and confused. I did not understand why he would do such a thing.
I ran home crying.
When I arrived, my uncle saw the tears running down my face and asked me what had happened. I told him everything the officer calling me, grabbing my cross, and tearing it from my neck.
My uncle had been drinking Koit and immediately said he would go with me. Some of the people around us tried to stop him because he had been drinking, but in the end, my Uncle Henry came along with us.
When we arrived, Uncle Henry calmly asked the officer,
“Why did you take the cross from the child?”
Before the officer could respond, my other uncle, Philip, arrived. When he heard what had happened, he became furious and struck the police officer.
The officer fell to the ground.
Within moments, people began rushing out of the ministry building after hearing the commotion. Soon more police officers arrived.
All of us were taken to the police station.
At the station, a criminal case was opened against us for assaulting a police officer. They also accused my uncle Philip of being drunk. My uncles were locked inside the jail, but because I was still a minor, I was not imprisoned with them. Instead, I sat outside near the entrance of the jail and waited.
Night fell.
I remember sitting there until around ten o’clock in the evening.
Then a well-known Southern lawyer arrived. His name was Gamar Al-Din Mohamed Al-Hassan Wani, one of the most respected lawyers in the state. He arranged bail for us.
When he read the official charge sheet, we were shocked. It claimed that we had attacked the police officer while carrying a knife.
The court hearing was scheduled for two weeks later.
Two weeks passed, and for the first time in my life, I stood inside a courtroom before a judge. I was only about twelve years old.
The judge asked us what had happened.
I told the truth exactly as it occurred how I had gone to the market, how the officer called me, asked about the cross on my neck, and then ripped it away without any reason.
The judge also listened to the police officer’s version of events. Several witnesses appeared people I had never seen before. In reality, there had been no one else present when the incident began except the officer and my uncles.
But in the end, the judgment was issued against us.
Both of my uncles were sentenced to prison and ordered to pay a fine. No one wanted to stand against a police officer over something like a cross.
I felt deeply hurt and powerless.
That was the first time in my life that I truly understood what injustice felt like. It was also the first time I clearly saw the discrimination that many of us faced as Southerners and as Christians.
That moment stayed with me for many years and shaped the way I saw the world.
Fortunately, our lawyer did not give up. He filed an appeal, and eventually the prison sentence was reduced and replaced with a financial penalty.
But the memory of that day the day my cross was taken never left me.
