'Lost Boys' find their way to Sunland

By Bill Hafer, Daily Sun staff writer

Three of the "lost boys from Sudan" shared their experiences of being separated from their families and surviving their country’s ongoing civil war with students at the Southeast Nebraska Alternative School Friday.

"The lost boys of Sudan were unaccompanied minors who are refugees from Sudan. Most of them were separated from their parents at the ages of 7 to 10 to 12 years. They were lost but banded together, like the lost boys in Peter Pan, and found their way to refugee camps," Arlis Scanlan of Papillion said.

Over the summer, Scanlan’s church, Thanksgiving Lutheran Church, Papillion, sponsored, through Lutheran Family Services, 18 Sudanese refugees to come to the United States.

The three lost boys who spoke to the students Friday were: James Akol, 24, who arrived in the United States in June and Simon Awai, 23, and David Pandek, 22, who both arrived in August.

Akol was 11, Awai was 8 and Pandek was 7 when they were separated from their parents by the fighting.

Akol said one day an army came to his village and surrounded it. He was at the town’s cattle camp, a little ways from town, taking care of the cattle at the time.

He said those at the cattle camp were confused by what was going on, and ran away when they heard shooting and saw the village on fire. The army shot most of the older people of his village, he said. In order to survive they had to hide and after a while the children and the few older people who survived gathered together and headed to Ethiopia because they heard about a United Nations refugee camp. They didn’t have the option of going back to find their parents because of the fighting, Akol said.

They spent three months walking, with no shoes, blankets or other supplies, to the camp. He said they reached Ethiopia in 1987 and spent four years in the camp.

Both Awai and Pandek, as well as thousands of others, went through similar experiences, they said.

Scanlan said Sudan’s civil war is the longest civil war in history. It began in 1983.

Awai said the fighting in Sudan is between the northern Arabic Muslim people and the Christian farmers in the south. Awai, Akol and Pandek are all from southern Sudan. There are more than 100 different tribes in southern Sudan, Akol said.

The war is being fought over religion and natural resources, they said.

Awai said there are several factions which are fighting in the south, both against the northern army and against each other. Recently, with aid from the United States, some of the larger factions in the south have agreed to band together to fight the north, Awai said.

All three lost boys were separated from their parents in 1987 and arrived in Ethiopia after several months of walking.

At the camp in Ethiopia they were put together in groups and each group had a caretaker, Pandek said. There are schools in the camp and food was rationed.

Pandel said fighting then started in Ethiopia and when their camp was attacked in 1991 they had the choice of running away across the river, although many of them couldn’t swim, or getting killed in the fighting.

After crossing the river the lost boys were back in Sudan, and spent about two and a half months walking through the desert to get to Kakuma, Kenya, the site of another refugee camp, Pandek said.

The trip through Sudan was slowed at times because they had to walked many miles out of the way to avoid towns that were controlled by Arabic armies. They generally avoided the main roads and walked barefoot through the brush, Akol said.

They reached Kakuma in 1992. During the walk there was always a concern because sometimes the Arabic soldiers would try to capture some of the boys to sell them to Christian Aid Workers, who would pay to save the boys, Akol said.

At the camp "life was really confusing," Awai said.

Scanlan said that while the United Nations did what it could to help the refugees the rations were not usually enough to last until the next food rations were given out.

Akol said they would combine their food with friends and share it. They would eat once per day, until their food ran out, he said. The days they had nothing to each they called black days.

Water was also somewhat scarce; there were taps in the camp that people could get water from, but the taps were only open for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Anyone who wasn’t able to get water during that time went without, Akol said.

In order to come to the United States the refugees were interviewed by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

The United States accepted 3,500 of the refugees last year; there are about 16,000 lost boys at the camp in Kakuma, Scanlan said.

Because there are good schools in the camps, all the refugees can speak, write and read English, Scanlan said. She added that two of the 18 refugees sponsored by her church have already earned General Education Development diplomas and several more are in the process. Within a month of moving here all of the refugees had gotten jobs and were supporting themselves, she said.

"Everything here is new to them," Scanlan said.

But all are enjoying learning about their new home.

"America is good, because there’s no war. We were disappointed when terrorists attacked in New York, and we pray to God that they do not do harm to this country," Akol said.

"What we like most is this is a country with people who are very generous, peaceful, and everybody has respect for other people," Pandek said.

Scanlan said anyone wanted to get involved with the effort to help the lost boys, by providing donations, volunteering or sponsoring refugees, should contact Heartland Refugee Resettlement, a program of Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, 4620 Randolph St., Lincoln, 489-7744,