Lost Boy lived to tell harrowing tale

Lubo Mikaj, who now lives and works in Charlotte, is one of the so-called "Lost Boys" of Sudan. He now devotes much of his time to helping his native country through "Mothering Across Continents." Photo by Katie Scarvey, Salisbury Post.

Lost Boy Lubo Mijak teaches under a tree in his native village of Nyaarweng. Mijak has started Raising Sudan, an effort to build schools in war-torn Sudanese villages. Submitted photo.

The current school in Nyaarweng is made of grass and can accommodate less than 50 children at a time. There are 340 school age children in Nyaarweng. This structure will last less than four years. Submitted photo.

By Katie Scarvey

kscarvey@salisburypost.com

Lubo Mijak was 8 years old when his village was attacked by the Sudan government militia.

Now 28 and living in Charlotte, Mijak spoke March 26 to students at Queens University about his trying past — and about the hope he has for the future of his country, which he is improving through a program called "Raising Sudan."

When Mijak's village was targeted, many villagers were killed, and some women and children who survived were abducted and sent into slavery.

At the time, Mijak was living three hours away, tending to cattle in a camp with other boys. That camp was also attacked.

During the attacks, Mijak hid in the river with the other boys. When it was safe to come out, they emerged and walked along the river, with the intention of returning to their village. They soon realized that the attackers were still a threat, so they turned around and followed the river — to Ethiopia.

The trip — a "bitter journey," Mijak described it — took them three months. On the way, they faced lions, crocodiles and starvation.

They were sometimes called "the boys who ate leaves," he said, because they would be so hungry they would sometimes resort to eating leaves and mud.

Mijak recalls taking a boy of 4 under his wing during that long walk. "I guess you could say I became his mother," he said.

Not all the boys completed the arduous journey, but Mijak did. He and the other survivors were welcomed to a camp in Ethiopia by the United Nations, where they stayed until 1991 when Ethiopia was in civil war and rebels took over the camp.

Mijak was going to return to Sudan but on the way, the government of Khartoum (the capital of Sudan) attacked them. Thousands of boys were killed, Mijak said. Many drowned while crossing the river Gilo, a branch of the Nile.

Mijak could swim, however.

He wound up in a refugee camp in Kenya, which is profiled in the movie "God Grew Tired of Us." There were 86,000 people from different African countries; among them were 20,000 Lost Boys, including Mijak.

There they lived on one spartan meal a day.

Mijak was able to go to school in the camps, and when he was around 17 or 18 he was promoted to a leader of a group of 500 Lost Boys, which entailed representing their issues to the U.N. and teaching them how to prevent HIV and other diseases through stories and poems.

In his remarks, Mijak emphasized the importance of global leadership. His own experience, he said, has taught him about bad leadership, which in many parts of Africa has led to conflict, violence, starvation.

Africa today, he says, is in need of educated leaders who can promote peace and security.

Mijak traveled back to his home village in Nyaarweng, in Unity State, southern Sudan, in 2007. He learned that his parents were not alive. He did see his three sisters, for the first time since he had left.

He was discouraged to learn that 90 percent of the adults there, including his sisters, cannot read or write, and that there is hunger, a lack of medical care and no clean water.

Mijak says he feels responsible for his family and his village— which is why he, and many other Lost Boys in this country, work several jobs in order to send money home.

Mijak created a program called "Raising Sudan" that is being supported by Mothering Across Continents, a non-profit established in the Charlotte area that launches pilot school projects in places that are poor and underserved.

Mijak's priority is to build schools in southern Sudan."I'm starting with my village, but the effort will spread," he says.

It will serve more than 300 children and will include four classrooms, a water source and a building for visiting teachers and Lost Boys like Mijak who can support the school.

"Schooling is so available here in the U.S. that it's probably hard for you to imagine the power of a school where I'm from," he said. "It becomes like the anchor or epicenter for learning in a whole community. It starts with the children and books, and then you can add meals and sustainable gardens, and adult learning, and it spreads.

"Small towns have actually been known to pick up and move to be near a school once it is established. That is now much education is valued.

"I hope you'll go home thinking about how much can be done for places far away from right here where we live," Mijak said.

"Anyone can make a difference. In Dinka, we have an expression, "Lec tene nhialic ku lec ku lec tene koc e koc kuony e ping nom."

"It means, 'Thanks be to God. And thanks be to people in the world who help others.'"