‘Lost Boys’ pursuing college degrees

| Sunday, February 11, 2007

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The Daily Republic

MITCHELL — The saga of the Lost Boys of the Sudan is as remarkable for its inspiration as its lack of resolution.

Samuel Bior and Thomas Madut, now students at Dakota Wesleyan University, were tiny children in 1987 when government-backed Arab militias attacked their villages. Scooped into the arms of older boys, they survived an epic trek across the desert to temporary safety in Ethiopia. They would later flee that country’s civil war.

It has been estimated that during one harrowing crossing of the rain-swollen and crocodile-infested Gilo River between the Ethiopia and Kenya border, nearly half of the escaping group of more than 20,000 refugees perished — shot by pursuing troops or drowned in the raging waters. Madut and Bior recall living in the refugee camps, where danger was abundant, food was in short supply and opportunities were few.

The boys’ odyssey was recently given new life in the January edition of National Geographic magazine, which featured the story of John Dau, a Lost Boy whose personal memoir was the basis for the film “God Grew Tired of Us,” which was released last month.

Madut, 21, a physical education major at Dakota Wesleyan University, said his countrymen have been dying in genocidal attacks for more than 20 years. Bior, 21, is now a nursing student at DWU.

Fellow Sudanese students at DWU include Yai Chol, 20, and Philip Lokiru, 20.

Although Madut and Bior would eventually find safety in the northern Kenya refugee camp of Kakuma, the families of Chol and Lokiru fled to Egypt and Nairobi, Kenya, respectively. All would seize an opportunity offered by a United Nations program to migrate to America. From New York City, the refugees were dispersed throughout the country.

“All are doing well,” Amy Novak, DWU vice president for enrollment management, said. “They’re very hard workers who are committed to improving their lives and opportunities.”

All have experienced personal journeys beyond average comprehension. They wonder at the political upheavals and changes that have swept them from a land of year-round equatorial summer to a small American town in the clutches of winter.

“I miss the climate (of Sudan),” Madut said. “It is too cold. I also miss my family. It has been so, so long since I talked with them.”

With the help of generous sponsors, they are making lives in the United States.

The boys believe that the genocidal attacks, which stretch from the late 1980s may have killed as many as 1 million to 2 million Dinka tribesmen. The attacks began in remote southern villages and moved west to Darfur. By one 2005 United Nations estimate, more than 180,000 people have died from violence, hunger or disease since October 2003. Most of the Dinka tribesmen are Christian and their presecutors are Islamic.

The film “God Grew Tired of Us” recounts the terrors of the Arab attacks. The despair reflected in the films title is nothing the DWU students haven’t felt themselves.

“Sometimes, I feel we are cursed,” Lokiru, a quiet freshman business major, said.

Madut, from the southern city of Wau, also wonders.

“I put my faith in God, but the war has gone on for some 20 years now,” he said. “Why doesn’t he help us?”

The international community has provided some aid but no military protection. The students said Americas efforts in the Iraq war would be more appreciated in the Sudan.

Yai, also from Wau, is a multimedia major at DWU and is equally puzzled. He said his father, once an army officer, moved his family to the capital city of Khartoum in northern Sudan to keep them safe. Uncomfortable in the largely Arab society, they moved back in the late 1990s and were attacked once more. They left for Egypt, and later, the United States.

He has become cynical about religion. He says life is sometimes easier for those who convert to Islam but not much.

He said his people are not only victimized by Arab militias, but by native Sudanese, some of whom are paid by Arabs to attack their countymen. Also, there are opportunistic Sudanese who form their own “militias,” which become little more than bands of thieves who “take food or anything they think is worth something.”

Yai’s mother now lives in Lewiston, Maine, and his step-father lives in Sioux Falls, where a large Sudanese community has sprung up. Many learned as refugees in other countries of a United Nations program to relocate displaced Sudanese. Safety was, understandably, a major priority for a new home.

“My mother chose Sioux Falls because they told her it was a family place, a safe place,” Yai said.

Groups such as Lutheran Social Services helped to acclimate them to life in America and also aided with rent and job assistance.

“After that, you are on your own,” Yai said.

Bior’s story is especially compelling. A freshman, he

only recently discovered his real name and age. Many Lost Boys were equally ignorant of their ages. Emigration officials assigned a Jan. 1, 1979, birthday to many boys, he said.

“When I came to this country, I think I am 23,” he said.

He also thought his name was Jacob. Just months ago, he met an uncle who told him his real name was Samuel and that his age is 21. He also learned that his parents survived the attacks that separated their family. He became an American citizen in December.

All students carry a sense of obligation. They expect to finish school and start taking care of other family members and to someday return to their own country.

Not all Sudanese refugees are Lost Boys, Madut said, but the plight of his people is a modern diaspora, a scattering that can’t be ignored.

“We are all lost from the Sudan,” he said, “just in different directions.”