The Tragedy: The Lost Boys Of The Sudan

LInda Sue Park's’ book, A Long Walk To Water, consists of a boy named Salva who lives in Sudan Africa around the time period of 1985. One day while Salva is attending school like any other normal day, the students in Salva’s class hear gunshots right outside their classroom window! Salva’s teacher yells for everyone to duck under their desks. A few moments after they all take cover, Salva’s teacher peeks up from under the desk to see if all of the gun firing had stopped. Salva’s teacher yells for them to run, not to run home but to run far away from home. War has begun and Sudan is not ready.

Daniel’s perspective is that Americans are not friendly. Daniel goes on to say that “you can not go to the house of somebody you don't know” (49.31). He later elaborates while in Sudan if you enter someone's home they will ask you questions such as “are you lost”, but in America, they will call the cops. Also later in the documentary there is a scene when Daniel talks about how when he was working at Whole Foods he saw a lady crying. Daniel said “lady walked by nobody talked to her, nobody confronted her”, he was dumbfounded that no one stopped to see what’s wrong (1.16.35). This event helped to shape his perspective that Americans are not friendly, they are closed off. For the lost boys of Sudan part of their behavioral culture is that they

Statistics show that a staggering 90% of the LRA forces were composed of abducted Ugandan children (SmallWarsJournal). Keeley Hutton's novel delves into the past of a young soldier named Ricky. Of these 90% Ricky saved, hundreds if not thousands, from the trauma and PTSD the LRA inflicted on their lives. Ricky's sense of remorse, determination, and forgiveness are the driving forces behind his actions in the novel Soldier Boy. Ricky's remorse played a crucial role in shaping his actions.

By the end of 1987, when John was barely thirteen years old, the Lost Boys finally cross into Ethiopia to a camp called Pinyudu after an almost 500 mile trek by foot. The adult caretakers in the camp put John in charge of over one thousand other boys in the camp. Even in the safe haven of Ethiopia, John still has to deal with hunger, disease, and overwhelming heat. Just as donations and food ration begin coming in from the UN and other relief organizations and life at the camp starts improving, the entire camp is forced to evacuate the camp during an attack from hostile Ethiopian soldiers.

On a historic level, I learned about the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s. The war was fought between the rebels and the government and lasted for over a decade. Numerous attacks on civilians caused many to die, especially parents and families. During this time, orphaned child soldiers were commonly used to fight in the war. Ishmael’s personal history describes these attacks. He describes family members being separated and killed, bodies of the dead, lost children, and a constant state of fear. “The sound of guns was so terrifying that it confused everyone. No one was able to think clearly... Everyone just ran for his or her life. Mothers lost their children, whose confused, sad cries

In a report published by UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) it states that there are around 300,000 child soldiers, participating in over 30 different conflicts worldwide. Of these 300,000, 120,000 are serving in different countries in Africa. One of the countries where this issue has been extremely prevalent is Sierra Leone, where child soldiers made up a significant part of the armed forces during its 11-year civil war, with 10,000 out of about 50,000 soldiers being children. Accounts of child soldiers in Sierra Leone have been made, with both the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the movie Ezra telling the story of a Sierra Leonean child soldier. Even though both the book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and the movie Ezra by Newton Aduaka are important works, A Long Way Gone is more important to help people think critically and understand important aspects of the world around them.

Since 1983, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudanese government have been at war within the southern region of Sudan. This brutal conflict has ravaged the country claiming hundreds of lives and exiling a vast number of the southern Sudanese people. Most of these outcasts were young men aging between five and twelve years of age who returned home from tending cattle to see their village being attacked and their fellow villagers being killed by government militias . These boys fled, not knowing what they would encounter on the journey to escape the violence in their own country. Hungry, frightened, and weak from their long and hellish journey, the boys reached refugee camps outside of Sudan. Even though many young men

A Long Walk to Water is a novel by Linda Sue Park, a true story of a young boy named Salva in war-torn Southern Sudan who survived despite all odds and the inconceivable challenges he encountered. Park shined light on the innumerable obstacles he faced as a Lost Boy. The Lost Boys are the thousands of young men who dared to make the journey to safety and refuge in Ethiopia by foot. Salva, only eleven years old when the war began in 1983 between the Muslim Arab north and the non-Muslim and non-Arab south, had to survive the rigorous environment. Survival factors like determination and will, motivation, persistence, and endurance made it possible to get through the many challenges.

Beginning in 1987, the muslim government of Sudan declared all christian males in South Sudan to death. 27,000 orphaned boys fled to ethiopia on foot. Come the end of the century in 1991 they fled to Kenya. Surviving a 1,000 mile Journey from South Sudan to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, lastly to a U.N. refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. During the journey, survival meant swimming rivers with the Nile Crocodile, burying collapsed refugee brothers, drinking urine, eating mud, outrunning muslim government troops with guns, before several thousand were granted asylum in the United States. There was a message board in the U.N. camp of near 10,000 people. On the message board was a list of all the men granted immigration acceptance, and were to leave

The article “Children of War”, by Arthur Brice, is about several children who had to flee the war in Bosnia and immigrate to the U.S. First of all, these children’s lives before the war were comfortable. However, many kids were affected by the war in Bosnia. In the process of fleeing, these children lost their family, friends, and homes. After being a refugee in Croatia for a long period of time, some of these children were able to relocate to the U.S. Here in America, these children have a good education. Also, they have an opportunity to live a better life away from the harshness of war. Still, these kids miss their friends, family, and country that they left behind. Although these kids are living in the United States right now, they

In a report published by UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) it states that there are around 300,000 child soldiers, participating in over 30 different conflicts worldwide. Of these 300,000, 120,000 are serving in different countries in Africa. One of the countries where this issue has been extremely prevalent is Sierra Leone, where child soldiers made up a significant part of the armed forces during its 11-year civil war, with 10,000 out of about 50,000 soldiers being children. Accounts of child soldiers in Sierra Leone have been made, with both the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the movie Ezra telling the story of a Sierra Leonean child soldier. Even though both the book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael

No one wants their childhood to be utterly destroyed or have their family taken away from them in the blink of an eye, without the chance to even say one last goodbye. The odd chance of that happening to us, here in America, is slim to none. In Sierra Leone on the other hand, along with many other parts of Africa, child soldiers are being put to use in armies. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the recruitment of child soldiers, African living situations, and the psychological trauma endured by the children deals with the issue of child soldiers.

Imagine having to fight in a war you don’t want to fight in, seeing friends and family die all around you, but no matter how far you run you can never escape. Child soldiers in Sierra Leone do not have to imagine this - for them, it is reality. Ishmael Beah, who became a soldier at just age 12, as well as researchers such as Christophe Bayer, Fionna Klasen, Hubertus Adam know too well that the events in the war can never be forgotten. The story Beah told in his memoir A Long Way Gone captures the inhumane events that take place in Sierra Leone and tells of a story that many children have to endure. Sources like Harvard claim “among the 87 war-torn countries...300,000 - 500,000 children are involved with fighting forces as child soldiers.” Many of those children are being forced into the war without any choice at all and having to kill others as well. With this information we’re forced to ask the question: how are these children being affected by the war?

Because the boys were often completely severed from all family ties, they had to learn to build new trust with boys they had barely known in order to take care of each other. The camp was maintained until the government collapsed and the boys were forced to flee again, but this time to Kenya. Another journey of hundreds and even thousands of miles had just begun. By the time the Lost Boys had reached Kenya, their numbers had been cut to 12,000. In such times, the people had to find ways to keep their minds occupied and to discuss issues such as returning home to a safe and unified Sudan. Slowly, the culture of the Sudan boys had been adapting and changing. Because there were few adults to raise these children as would their parents in Sudan, the boys developed their own semblance of their culture. Other societies take for granted that their culture is passed down by their family and other surrounding sociological forces, so for thousands of young boys to have to figure it out for themselves in an astonishing thought. Many other cultures do not understand the genocide that occurs in Africa, more specifically Sudan. This is not a cultural norm that exists in Western society where people are more accepting of other cultural ideals. This ethnocentrism raises concern by many other regions of the world, but because they are not actually a party of this seemingly strange culture, not much is done in order to end such crisis

Ishmael Beah continues to reach out and help change the course for over hundreds of children that are confined in wars. He is a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division Advisory Committee, head of the Ishmael Beah Foundation and also co-founded the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW) in 2008. In this committee, Beah has a goal to raise recognition to the children that are in conflict zones and is a campaigner for an end to hostilities. For the children who are struggling to recover from war, he wants to provide them with role models, like himself.