Adrien Atiman

Adrien Atiman (–1956) was a Catholic catechist and medical doctor.

Early life Atiman was born in Tindirma, French Sudan, on the Niger River. He belonged to the Songhai ethnic group and was captured at a young age by members of the Tuareg, who sold him as a slave in Timbuktu. He passed through different hands before arriving in Metlili, Southern Algeria, where he was ransomed by the Missionaries of Africa, or White Fathers, who sent him to school in Algeria and Tunisia. Cardinal Lavigerie, archbishop of Carthage and Algiers, was impressed by Atiman's performance and arranged for him to study medicine at the University of Malta. Karema was a new mission station on land recently transferred from the Congo Free State to German East Africa. Here he established himself as a medical catechist, or médecin-catéchiste. He married the daughter of the chief Wabende and had a son called Joseph. He was awarded four British decorations, including the Royal African Society's Wellcome Medal, and received three Belgian awards for care given to colonial troops during World War I between 1916 and 1918.