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Miana’s story: freedom after 11 years captivity

By Sarah Oughton
August 28, 2009 at 4:26 pm

Miana Badd, 28, was abducted from her family in Somalia when she was just 14 years old. She was then held in captivity for 11 years, before waking up in a hospital in Aberdeen in early 2007. Listen to her story.

Miana’s story: freedom after 11 years captivity

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Sharon: Imagine losing touch with your family? How would you feel not knowing if they were alive or dead? Or if you would ever see them again?

Sunday the thirtieth of August is International Day of the Disappeared. The Day is a chance to remember the millions of people who have gone missing as a result of conflicts and violence around the world – whose loved ones still don’t know what’s happened to them.

The British Red Cross tracing and message service is part of a global Red Cross network, which searches for missing family members and puts them back in touch when normal means of communication have broken down

Currently, we’re tracing the relatives of more then 2,000 families who have been separated as a result of conflicts in places like Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq and many other countries around the world. In 2008 alone, we traced 476 people and exchanged 527 messages between families and their relatives.

One lady using the British Red Cross tracing service to find her children is 28 year old Miana Badd. Miana was abducted from her family in Somalia when she was just 14 years old. She was then held in captivity for 11 years, before waking up in a hospital in Aberdeen in early 2007.

I’m Sharon Reader and I’ve come to the Red Cross Refugee Unit in Glasgow to meet Miana, hear her story and find out why Day of the Disappeared is worth making a fuss about.

Hello Miana, it’s lovely to meet you and thank you for agreeing to talk to us. Firstly could you tell me a little about your life in Somalia before you came to Scotland?

Miana: I was a happily married woman and I had a family, a big family until tragedy happened. My village was a small town and that’s where every other towns came to do trading because it was near the ocean and there was a lot of fishing around there. My dad had some problems because of the clan thing and because he was a transporter people said he was transporting guns to other clans. I was helping my father because he couldn’t trust anybody else, that’s when they attacked us at the office and I didn’t have a chance to go back home and see the children. I’d left them sleeping in the morning.

Sharon: So can you tell us about the day you were abducted, what happened

Miana: We just went to the office as normal, seven o’clock before we opened the shop, but as soon as we opened there was trucks, lorries of armed men, with guns, with pangas. As soon as we opened they just jumped inside the house, just like, they were there ready to attack us.

And they took my father inside the office, where they asked him some questions which we didn’t know but later on when my father came out he was handcuffed and he told us that they were suspecting him of dealing with other clans.

Sharon: And what happened after they brought your father out of the office?

Miana: They took him, I don’t know where but before they did some guys were with them the white men, there were four white men who took me on a boat, a fishing boat sort of. My husband was shot because he was resisting to go climb on, to go with them, so they shoot him. And we left him lying there, don’t know if he survived or what. That was the last time I saw any of my family.

Sharon: And what happened next?

Miana: Just lived inside the boat for a very long time, we didn’t know where because they could make us sleep. By the time you wake up you’re so wobbly, you can’t do anything. After a very long time they kept on changing us from the boat to a certain room which was made of chains. They put chains for that occasion and I don’t know, they used to tie us up so we couldn’t move.

Sharon: That must have been awful not to have your freedom and also to be worrying about your family too.

Miana: Yes I was worried, I was always thinking what has happened to them. If something has happened to us maybe something else also has happened to them. I didn’t know anything. I tried to shout for help, but nobody could hear me.

Sharon: And how long were you kept like that for?

Miana: We were kept for many years. When you’re inside there you don’t know if it’s day or night, it’s only the time I left, I remember the time I left and then after they found me in Aberdeen that’s when I knew how many years I’d spent with these people.

Sharon: But at the time, it was hard to track the time?

Miana: Yeah you can’t know it’s night, because the place is darkish, so we don’t know if it’s day or night. The only think I always knew is I’m naked, I’m being hurt. I can’t make noise because I can’t… nobody can help me because I don’t know where I am.

Sharon: How did you find yourself in Aberdeen?

Miana: I found myself in hospital, that’s when those people told me they picked me up from somewhere, the police told me they picked me up from a certain place. I was just excited to see other faces apart from those men I was with in the place.

Sharon: And then after that you were brought down to Glasgow.

Miana: I was brought down to Glasgow, because there is no immigration, the immigration that is there is just for visa renewals, so they transferred me to Glasgow.

Sharon: And how was your first few weeks living in Glasgow?

Miana: I don’t remember. I don’t remember because I was very sick. When I opened my eyes and saw where I was, I was happy. But later on when I felt a wee bit safe, the pain started coming out. At that time I had excitement and then later on when I was transferred here and I had a place to stay, I started being scared, the trauma came back.

Sharon: And when did things start to get better for you?

Miana: It took months before I started getting better, I was walking around Glasgow not knowing where I am, it was like a dream. And I was scared of everybody around me. My support worker went with me to the GP and they had to admit me at that moment. I stayed in the hospital for several months and then I think the medication helped me calm down a wee bit and the support I had. I had support from the Red Cross and from a group for trafficked women and the doctors and psychiatrist.

Sharon: So what’s your involvement with the Red Cross?

Miana: What’s my involvement? I do volunteering jobs for them, different roles. I work with orientation service. Sometimes I help interpreting, first aid and I’m planning to do more.

Sharon: And can you tell me about yourself and Frank and obviously you started a tracing case to find your son?

Miana: As soon as they found me and I didn’t have the knowledge of where my family was and they referred me to the Red Cross, this was before I became a volunteer. They took some information from me, even though I didn’t have lots of it, but something that might help. I had a problem because when I used to stay in Somalia I never left my small village so I didn’t know what was beyond that village.

Sharon: So you started a case, Frank started a case.

Miana: Frank started a case for me since 2007.

Sharon: And what happened when he found your son?

Miana: I don’t know how they do their stuff, the tracing stuff but one morning I just came back and he had some news for me. That moment I wish everybody could be there to see. I was so excited that my heart stopped beating, because of the excitement of some news. And I hugged him like crazy.

Sharon: Have you now spoken to your son?

Miana: I do communicate with him every two weeks.

Sharon: And was he overjoyed to hear from you too?

Miana: He was, he was overjoyed. And I wish a day comes when I get to hug him.

Sharon: It will. Why do you think it’s important to mark Day of the Disappeared, why should people care?

Miana: People should care too much for that day because that’s the day when somebody loses something very important in their lives. I lost my family on one day only, in a few minutes I lost everything I thought I’d lived to know in my life. It’s not easy to get everything back. When you lose, you lose.

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