Group items tagged

government-armed militia

Rezeigat and Meseriya people

Baggara, cattle-herding Arabic-speaking people

Many centuries

xported tens of thousands more to Egypt and the Arab states.

The government has repeatedly denied that slavery exists,

the government has not often been helpful.

escape, s

eleased by the courts or by inter-tribal negotiation.

Reports of foreigners helping to "buy back"

lavery had been an institution of Sudanese life throughout history

Because Sudan had access to Middle East slave markets, the slave trade in the south intensified in the nineteenth century and continued after the British had suppressed slavery in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Annual raids resulted in the capture of countless thousands of southern Sudanese, and the destruction of the region's stability and economy. The horrors associated with the slave trade generated European interest in Sudan.

Sudan was proclaimed a condominium in 1899 under British-Egyptian administration.

he SPLA, and its NDA allies received political, military and logistical support primarily from Ethiopia, Uganda and Eritrea.

The majority of the boys belonged to the Dinka or Nuer tribes, and most were then between the ages of 8 and 18. (Most of the boys don't know for sure how old they are; aid workers assigned them approximate ages after they arrived in 1992.) As Red Cross and United Nations relief workers scrambled to find shelter for them, the boys -- which is how they all, regardless of age, refer to one another -- described an almost unfathomable journey.

described the Lost Boys, whom he met several times during their itinerant years, as ''among the most badly war-traumatized children ever examined.''

repatriation

becoming the largest resettled group of unaccompanied refugee children in history.

one new arrival scream and run in fear at the sight of an escalator

Given the magnitude of these kids' adjustment, it was hard not to wonder how it would all work out.

The words describing America had piled up without real meaning: freedom, democracy, a safe place, a land with food enough for everyone

he combination of war, famine and disease in southern Sudan has killed more than two million people and displaced another four million

They're going from an environment where you've basically been given everything at the camp to an environment where you have to work, you have to produce,'' says Steve Redding, who directs the Kenya and southern Sudan programs of International Rescue Committee. ''It's a huge leap

''It's a hard life here,'' Sunday whispered to the older boy, ''but it's a free life too.''

espite their numbers, the lost boys tell stories that are remarkably similar and uniformly disturbing.

While they can be strikingly unemotional describing the horrors of their pasts, they nonetheless seem eager for Americans to appreciate the plight of their country. Predictably, those who had been in the United States a month or more were the most comfortable reflecting on what they had been through, while newer arrivals often seemed overwhelmed

as many as 74 percent of the boys survived shelling or air bombardment, 85 percent saw someone die from starvation, 92 percent said they were shot at and 97 percent witnessed a killing.

Terry Walsh, vice president for a refugee program run by Catholic Social Services in Lansing, Mich. ''For most refugees, education is important. But I've never met a group more dedicated to it. Education has always been the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.''

According to psychologists who work with war victims, refugee children who have finally reached a safe and stable environment are often confronted with long-suppressed feelings of fear, guilt and grief over what they have been through.

Arguably, whether their parents are living or not, most of the Lost Boys have no choice but to move on

Five weeks after his arrival, he was finding life in America to be hard -- harder than anyone had told him it would be

Without an American host family or church organization to help buffer the expenses, the three brothers seemed to grow more despondent with each passing week.

The first three months are always the toughest. It really does get better

''When someone first comes to this country as a refugee,'' he says, ''there's a euphoria of starting anew. But when that starts to wear off, a lot of problems can surface.''

This is a stove burner. this is a can opener. This is a brush for your teeth. The new things came in a tumble. The brothers' home was a sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment in the basement of a sterile-looking complex on Fargo's south side, for which they would pay $445 a month. It had been stocked by a resettlement agency employee, primarily with donations from area churches and businesses, and the randomness reflected as much: there were two bundt pans, six tubes of toothpaste and no towels or cutting knives. Nonetheless, it was a good start. A loaf of white bread sat on the counter alongside a bunch of ripe bananas. There were cans of beans, a jumbo box of Corn Flakes, tea bags, a modest collection of mismatched dishes and a gallon of whole milk in the refrigerator.

im. Each boy then took a turn at the sink, awkwardly shoving the faucet handle to and fro.

And so began an opening spree. We opened a bag of potato chips. We opened a can of beans and untwisted the tie on the bagged loaf of bread. We unwrapped some I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and dropped a pat to sizzle in a hot pan on the stove. We cracked eggs, each boy taking his turn, erupting into paroxysms of laughter as the shell shattered in his grasp. After the eggs were scrambled and the food laid out, Peter, Maduk and Riak sat down and ate, chewing loudly, not saying a word until most of it was gone.

Hornbacher's, a standard-issue Midwestern grocery store, proved to be full of wonders. The electric doors. The grocery carts. The riotous rows of brightly packaged food and the ample-bodied white people who filled their carts with whatever they wished to buy. With the eyes of nearly every shopper in the store on them, the boys wandered tentatively through the produce section, looking but not touching, until Riak discovered a bin of green mangoes, which triggered a round of excited Dinka chatter. As we made our way through the store, they recognized nothing else except a bag of rice, but each new aisle seemed to embolden them, and soon they were moving as a meticulous three-man inspection team, studying labels, squeezing boxes and quietly pronouncing the names of everything from Special K to Velveeta.

The next aisle over, Peter touched my shoulder. He was holding a can of Purina dog food. ''Excuse me, Sara, but can you tell me what this is?'' Behind him, the pet food was stacked practically floor to ceiling. ''Um, that's food for our dogs,'' I answered, cringing at what that must sound like to a man who had spent the last eight years eating porridge. ''Ah, I see,'' Peter said, replacing the can on the shelf and appearing satisfied. He pushed his grocery cart a few more steps and then turned again to face me, looking quizzical. ''Tell me,'' he said, ''what is the work of dogs in this country?''

"When I was 12, he said he wanted to sleep with me. I could not refuse because I was a slave, I had to do everything he wanted, or he could have killed me."

Drunk and abusive, his slave master often beat him. Once, as punishment, he had chili peppers rubbed into his eyes, causing him to go blind.

Experts say there's really no concrete estimate on the number of slaves in Sudan. They blame the absence of data on a lack of concern in the international community.

CSI rescued Deng and brought him to the United States, where doctors recently operated on his eyes. It's unclear how much of his sight he may regain.

"The offspring of those women who are enslaved when they're raped by their masters or their master's sons will become Muslim. They have no choice," Eibner explained.

he does not know his exact age,

Malual said his older brother shook him awake one day and told him to run.

Malual’s gr

oup was the first to settle in that area

Every 14 days, each boy received 15 kilograms of maize flour, some cooking oil and one cup of beans,

Sharing was what kept us together, pushed us together,

If I didn’t receive my ration one day, my friend would call me when it was time to eat.”

Malual, then a teenager, found a job. Although the large bulk of his salary went toward rent for an apartment he almost never saw, Malual took on extra hours and began to save money

You’re going to go home,’” Malual said. “And they gave me a ticket. I was so happy; I couldn’t believe it.”

‘Is this the wrong family?’”

His brother, who had been the one to tell Malual to run as a child, had remained in the village.

‘When I told you to run, I didn’t mean to run forever

he described America as his second home and said he couldn’t imagine leaving it.