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Applause - 6-7-2019 - Sudanese Designer Malaz Elgemiabby on Ohio City Projects, Conflict in Sudan
 
 
 
Malaz Elgemiabby is designing a new welcome center in Ohio City.

But her heart is with her family living in Sudan, where military forces reportedly killed dozens of pro-democracy protestors this week.

Elgemiabby struggled to reach her family afterwards, but she heard of others reeling from the violence.

"We've had people who have some members of families missing and we can't locate them," she said. "Some have also lost members of the families, young members as young as the age of 3 years old."

Elgemiabby left Sudan in 2006 knowing she wouldn't be able to pursue her dreams there.

"I decided to actually pursue my education outside of Sudan. And then I became more involved in activism," she said.

Trained in architecture, Elegmiabby has been working in Northeast Ohio for the last three years.

Before moving here, Elgemiabby returned to Sudan in 2015 when her mother was sick. While there, she did a performance-art piece to raise awareness about the issue of mothers abandoning babies born out of wedlock for fear of their own lives.

"By law they are facing two charges, either hundred [lashes] in public, where you have a huge stigmatization. So that means that if she actually escapes the death, death under her own family, you get a societal suicide by doing that. Then it's stoning to death," Elgemiabby said.

She made a statement about the issue by inviting government officials to a performance where people in the audience threw eggs at a woman.

"That was sort of like a very provocative work of art that led to¿ informal arrest warrant under my name, so I had to leave."
June 7, 2019