On the day seven-year-old James Bol Ariath ’09 left his village in Sudan to take his herd to a cattle camp, war broke out between the camp and his village. “I was separated from my home by death and carnage, blood and bodies. I had nowhere to go,” Bol Ariath says. “I would just run until exhaustion set in. You could not stop or you would be killed.” Bol Ariath has not seen nor heard from his parents or six brothers and sisters since 1983, and he has no idea if they are even alive.
In 1986, a nine-year-old Lino Malou ’07 slept peacefully with his two brothers and five sisters, until the quiet was pierced by bullets, explosions and screams from his neighbors. “When you are attacked in darkness there is no chance to gather everyone together. You just run, run as fast as you can into the darkness and hope to survive,” Malou says. “This was how the government did it. They came at night to create confusion.”
Both James Bol Ariath ’09 and Lino Malou ’07 are business administration majors in the Accelerated Degree Completion Program at Albright’s Harrisburg site. Both came to the United States in 2001 looking for a better opportunity. Both are Lost Boys of Sudan.
Roughly one quarter the size of the United States, the nation of Sudan is the largest country on the continent of Africa.
Its landscape is dominated by the Nile River, which enters Sudan from the north through Egypt and continues the entire length of the country before entering Uganda in the south. Its turbulent history can be traced back to Biblical times when Sudan and Egypt battled for control of the Nile. It wasn’t until the 1880s that the British joined the Egyptians and took control of Sudan. In 1956 the United Kingdom granted Sudan its independence.
The battle for control of Sudan is between the Islamic population in the north who wish to impose traditional Islamic law on all residents, and the Christian population in the southern areas of the country who wish for a free democratic land. In 1989 Sudan’s current leader, President General Omar al-Bashir took power in a military coup. Over the last 12 years Bashir has led the country in a holy civil war against the southern population, killing over a half a million people. Males in Sudan were slaughtered while women found themselves sold into slavery. Young boys fled for their lives and soon became members of an unfortunate group. Terrified and alone, they began to walk. Soon dozens became hundreds, hundreds became thousands and before long there was a mass exodus out of southern Sudan. “There was no food, no water and no shoes. Many were eaten by lions and wild animals as we walked,” recounts Malou.
Eventually the survivors made it to Ethiopia where they spent the next four years in various refugee camps. In 1991 political turmoil in Ethiopia meant new leadership for that country, a leadership that did not welcome the Sudanese refugees. The camps were attacked by the military in the middle of the night. The boys were on the run again, forced to return to Sudan.
Water was scarce, food non-existent.“If you were fortunate enough to have to urinate, you drank it,” says Bol Ariath through his heavy Sudanese accent. “It could very well be the only liquid you would see for days.” At night the boys slept among the bodies of the dead in hopes that wild animals would be slowed by the corpses around them.
For those who survived, there were more
challenges to face. To get to safety they
needed to cross the River Gilo at the border
of Sudan and Ethiopia. “The river moved very
fast and if you didn’t know how to swim you
would drown,” says Malou. “I saw thousands
drown and be eaten by alligators that day.”
Knowing how to swim, Malou dove into the
river and floated to the center, out of reach
of others, before he swam to the opposite
shore. “Those who could not swim would
frantically grab onto those who could and
everyone would drown. I had to fake it until
I reached the middle so no one would grab
onto me. Bodies floated all around me,” he
says recounting the horror.
Relief slowly trickled in to the Sudanese people. The United Nations began dropping corn to the refugees. “If you ate three meals a month you were considered lucky,” says Bol Ariath. “At one point 200 people shared a single cow for a week. Many died just fighting others for food.” Even today, Bol Ariath and Malou, both tall and thin, eat just once a day.
As the Red Cross attempted to clear a path for the boys more bombings began and the entire group fled to Kenya.
In Kenya, Bol Ariath and Malou were in the same camp, although they never met. Education became available in these camps, but supplies were rare. A dozen students would share the same textbook, and to do homework they wrote in the dirt with their fingers. Still, this group of young boys was determined to educate themselves.
Both Malou and Bol Ariath believe that their mission in life is to gain an education and use that knowledge to better life in Sudan. Even while walking thousands of miles many of the boys carried their school books with them. There is a saying among the boys, “Education is my mother and my father.” It is a deep-rooted belief that education will not only set them free, but their homeland as well.
In the summer of 2001 Malou and Bol Ariath were airlifted out of Sudan and brought to Harrisburg, Pa., through the Lutheran Church of America. This would be the first time they would meet throughout the ordeal. The men live in different host homes and work full-time jobs. Like all Lost Boys airlifted to the United States, they must reimburse the United States government for their airfare.
Like other Sudanese child refugees, Bol Ariath and Malou have spent more than twothirds of their lives on the run, living in tents with little food or water, struggling to survive. They have seen family and friends massacred. They have witnessed the destruction of their native land. Neither man knows if he will ever return to Sudan.
While both are proud of their homeland and appreciative of all they’ve received in the United States, in the words of Bol Ariath, “Many times I think it would have been better to die.”
The conflict in Sudan still rages on in Darfur, and in western sections of the country.