South Sudan - Deim Zubeir – Slave route site

Deim Zubeir is an historical slave trench from the 19th century Slave trade located in Raja County in Western Bahr Elghazal State, in the Republic of South Sudan. Situated 675 km from the capital Juba and 70 km from the border of the Central African Republic, it is an area occupied by three ethnic groups: Balanda, Baya and Zande. The local community historically referred to this area as ‘Uyujuku’ but the name Deim Zubeir came about after a businessman called Zubeir Rahma Mansur, who came from northern Sudan to collect ivory, got involved in the slave trade business in collaboration with the Turco-Egyptian regime. As Deng D. Akol Ruay wrote in the The Politics of Two Sudans (1994): “The most powerful of these traders [coming from the North] was Zubeir Rahma Mansur, a Jaali who came to Bahr el-Ghazal in 1856. He established a large powerful Zariba[1] at Deim Zubeir (named after him) for the slaveraids.” In 1866, Zubeir entered into alliance with the Baggara Arabs for safe passage of his slave-caravans through their territory to Kordofan. With an armed band of not less than a thousand men at his command, Zubeir created an empire whose raids in slaves reached probably as many as 1800 slaves in a single year. By 1860 the slave trade reached its peak in Southern Sudan and the African population there was on the threshold of extinction. In the opinion of Joseph Natterer, an Austrian consul in Khartoum, "there are no longer merchants but only robbers and slavers on the White Nile".