The Lost Boys of Sudan
Part 1: Out of Africa
by Svetlana Guineva
The Metropolitan
Arok Garang, one of the Sudanian refugees known as the "Lost Boys of Sudan," sits at the Auraria Media Center. Garang's sole purpose in coming to the United States is to obtain a college degree.
There is a land in the heart of Africa where the blazing sun in a clear blue sky dries up the earth with merciless persistence, forming cracks wide enough to swallow the last hopes of a harsh existence; a land where the Nile overflows, unfriendly, leaving swamps behind, and mud; a land where lions and crocodiles with no regard to human life rule.
Just as the dry season alternates with the wet season, people of this land live in perpetual battle with the forces of nature, overcoming despair and hardships through the joy of labor. Cattle are worshiped as a main source of life, songs are sung, and dances are danced with the unbreakable energy of free spirits merging with that same nature.
One day, the clear blue sky darkens with planes pregnant with death. The bombs fall, whizzing, silence the joyful singing voices, but extract ungodly screaming; a fire licks the heavens.
One night, gunshots waken sleepy eyes and fill them with horror; the rifles flicker in the dark, sowing bullets in innocent flesh. Feet run, mouths stretch in inhuman fear producing no sound, hearts beat in the maddening rhythm of dripping blood.
Run, boy, run.
Sudan. A country torn by a civil war for
longer than its people can remember, has taken the lives of more than two million. Four million have been displaced with no point of return. The post-colonial era, that is, since Sudan was granted independence from Great Britain in 1956, has been marked by ongoing conflict between the Arab Muslim North and the black Christian animist in the South.
There has been a systematic policy from various governments and regimes in Khartoum (the capital), of gradual imposition of Arab culture and Islamic values on South Sudan, resulting in human rights abuse on a massive scale.
In 1983, after almost 10 years of fragile peace, the civil war broke out anew. It continues even today with increasing devastation for its victims, the people of southern Sudan.
Some call it genocide; some call it an ethnic cleansing. Whatever the tag, the number of deaths speaks louder as if to justify, for some, religious barbarianism.
So, the homeless of that ravaged land flooded the neighboring countries and peacefully waited for someone to notice. Hungry. Among them thousands and thousands of children were marked in the war records. This is a human-created tragedy that can be resolved by human beings, said Simon Garang, a 25-year-old refugee, one of the 61 Colorado contingent Sudanese young men and boys, who resettled in Denver three years ago. Humans can create terrible evil like the one happening in Sudan, but human beings can create good things, too.
The words of wisdom seem to roll out of his mouth like heavy stones leaving marks as they fall. He is calm and looks as if he has put everything behind, and with pure mind has headed toward the future. This is half of the truth. The other half, that nothing is forgotten, manifests itself through the tremble in his voice as he begins to tell the story of his life.
Simon was the third child born to a farmer in the village called Baping, according to him, with a population about 30,000 spread around in many miles. The village boys were usually busy looking after the cattle, gathering firewood, some attending school, some playing and swimming in the Nile. This idyll world of simple harmony changed forever one afternoon in 1987 when Simon was only 8 years old. He was in class at the school located five miles away, a distance he walked every day. He heard the bombing and the gunfire and he saw the smoke from burning huts. The teacher told them to leave the building and hide in the bush.
Simon takes a second to recover from the memory, but the worst is yet to come.
The government-backed militia always used the same tactics, same pattern, Simon explained. They dropped bombs, ambushed the people on land--so there is no direction in which to escape-and shot at everything that moved, "cattle, farm animals, and humans."
"They did a lot of terrible things I cannot describe," he said.
The root of the brutality and the killing is defined by religious, ethnic, and economic grudges. The South strives for autonomy, expressed by the sporadic actions of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army.
On the other side, there is an intentional nationwide Arabization and Islamization imposed by President Numayri, who declared in 1983 that Shariaah (Islamic Law) should dictate the way of life; that Arabic should be the only language used in schools, and the Koran verses be recited.
Then, oil was discovered in southern Sudan where black Africans lived.
For three days Simon, most of the 400 students who couldn't return to their villages, and other survivors of the attacks, hid in the bush until the militia started to hunt for anyone who might have survived.
The group, joined by more fugitives-mainly boys who'd been at school or a cattle camp during the attack-headed east to the border of Ethiopia, undertaking a trek of hundreds of miles. The refugees faced a dire situation: there was nothing to eat, no water to drink for days, young kids and elderly people could not endure the hunger and long hours of walking and would fall behind only to become a meal for lions and vultures.
The militia kept following the human trail and whenever they saw a group of people walking in the bush or crossing a river, they would drop bombs.
Many could not swim so they either drowned in the river's muddy waters, or were eaten by crocodiles, Simon said, talking slowly with a soft British accent, uttering the words carefully so as not to miss an important one, a shackle that links the images in a the grand picture of the horror in his life.
"I tried to look around and all I saw was people dying, some very good friends of mine, whom I have known for years; I saw them dying," Simon said.
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