What the Lost Boys of Sudan Found in America

It has now been 18 months since Alepho, Benson and their cousins, Lino Yier Diing and Benjamin Ajak, all now in their early 20s, came to the United States. They were among some 100 Lost Boys sent to San Diego, to America, that place they'd heard of for years--a dazzling Land of Oz where no one ever went hungry or cold, machines did all the work, everybody was rich, and people lived in harmony.

Benson was 7 years old, Alepho 5. Only two years' difference, but in Dinka culture, Benson was old enough to help tend the family's cattle, which is how Benson happened to be sleeping at his uncle's house in a different village from his parents' home when a huge explosion woke him. Muslim raiders had swept out of the night. The day his parents had warned him about had arrived. Government troops were methodically destroying the homes, livestock and stockpiles of food. A few of the Dinka men fought back with spears, but they were quickly cut down.

Benson's parents had told him to run into the forest if the soldiers came. He did, along with about 25 others, fleeing through the night and eventually joining with hundreds of refugees on a months-long journey to the Ethiopian border. His life and those of his brother and cousins over the next 16 years is a hodgepodge of memories and impressions. Their recollections, from a series of interviews, provide a narrative of their African experience.

As Benson fled toward Ethiopia, he wore only lice-infested underpants; his bare feet were always sore. "I used to sit alone and I don't want to talk to anybody, because I am alone," Benson recalls. "Where is my mother? Where is my father? Where am I going? Am I going to die here by myself?"

He lived in an Ethiopian refugee camp for three years, subsisting on meager handouts from relief agencies. Boys at the camp formed their own support network, sitting around the fire at night, groups of youngsters 5, 8, 10 years old, imitating the tribal gatherings of their villages. "When one of us made a mistake, the others helped him see his mistake," Benjamin says. "We became our own parents."

Then civil war erupted in Ethiopia, and in 1991 government troops forced the Lost Boys back across the treacherous Gilo River to Sudan. More than 2,000 died during the crossing. Some were shot, some drowned. "Many were eaten by crocodiles," Benson recalls. Another series of refugee camps followed, some administered by the Sudan People's Liberation Army--Dinka rebels who were only marginally better than the Muslims. Benson, Benjamin and others were forced into army training camps.