Last Saturday, we went to Batroun to visit Wani. What did he do? He’s Sudanese and doesn’t have legal residence in Lebanon. Even though now he has been granted status as a refugee by the UNHCR, he is still sitting in prison. It’s been over six months. Batroun is about a 40-minute drive out of Beirut. The prison is located in a small annex of the main municipality building in the middle of the town square.
The first time I met Wani was at Starbucks. Some American missionaries had a music night every Friday, where they played guitar and sang songs they wrote and popular Christian worship songs. It wasn’t all straight-up religious music; some of it wasn’t that obvious. (Can people do this stuff in the U.S.?) Next to the white, Lebanese-American guy and his Thai-American wife was Sudanese Wani, playing the guitar. He sang a cover of a Bob Marley song.
Wani is from southern Sudan. His father is Muslim; his mother is Christian. The first time he applied for the UNHCR card, he was rejected. The UNHCR doesn’t usually give refugee status to Muslims. When he was arrested, he was living in Sin el Fil, in a run-down cabin, guarding a place. Part of his job was to drive a truck, delivering diesel. This is not a good situation for a man without legal papers. In moving around, a person can easily be stopped. Wani had already spent some time in prison for being illegal, which is when he became a Christian.
The General Security says they will release Wani if he has a passport. But he doesn’t have it. A former employer says he has it (though it is probably a fake) and will give it back to him for the $600 he claims Wani owes him.
Now he’s in Batroun. We talk to him through a perforated metal sheet. The guards seem to be fairly friendly with the prisoners, which wasn’t the case in the bigger prison, Roumieh, where he was for three months. There might be 100 people in Batroun. When his dad died in February, he wasn’t able to speak to his family. He claims that this is one of the various restrictions of prison life, that has nothing to do with the particular guards.
A regular rotation has been set up at church to make sure someone visits him every Saturday. Clean water from the outside is necessary, along with toiletries, clothes, and food. We brought him batteries for the walkman we brought him the first time. He regularly listens to Christian radio shows. The guards gave him a hard time about the batteries, because they can be used as some sort of weapon. But they see that he’s listening to his radio. Wani has also been studying the Bible and praying more. He feels like he is getting closer to God, and he knows that God has put him there for a reason—to make him grow closer to Him.
Wani has a lawyer now with Frontiers, who is following up his case. His UN status might help him. But in the meantime, without a passport, it seems that he cannot be released. The other option is deportation, which requires money for a plane ticket. Wani hopes he will get resettled soon in a third country through the UN. In the meantime, he makes it seem that he has it better in the prison, than struggling without work, with illegal status, outside.
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