 Deim Zubeir residents at the time included a substantial number of ex-soldiers and former slaves, who had lost their ethnic ties and converted to Islam with Arabic as lingua franca.Refugees from French Equatorial Africa (FEA) settled in Deim Zubeir during this time as well, but were displaced by the British-led colonial administration back to FEA in 1912.Living conditions at the time were particularly hard, since the area of Deim Zubeir was heavily infested with tsetse flies, which transmits the sleeping sickness.