

Reddington took care of him, nursed him back to health, and made sure he got an education. He spent 8 years in the world of human trafficking and was enslaved until the age of 14, when Reddington found him half-dead and chained to a pipe in the basement of a brothel in Nairobi. At some point, he was being held by the Eberhardt Cartel. When Samwel reported a number of low-ranking operatives of the Mombasa Cartel, a poaching organization, to the authorities, the cartel killed Dembe's father, mother, and siblings, and sold Dembe to human traffickers. In “ The Mombasa Cartel” it is revealed that he was born the youngest son of a farmer named Samwel Zuma. It was assumed that he was Raymond Reddington's bodyguard.

Dembe is introduced as a former freedom fighter from South Sudan.
