By Mark Wineka
Salisbury Post
One could say the Lost Boys of Sudan are neither lost nor boys any longer.
But their stories and their efforts to help the homeland whose civil war made them child refugees will live a long time, thanks to now grown Lost Boys such as John Madut.
Madut, who lives in Atlanta, spoke Friday night to a gathering at St. Johns Lutheran Church about his own escape from southern Sudan and his trip back to his home village last year.
A peace signed in 2005 made the journey back to southern Sudan possible. What Madut and two of his fellow Lost Boys discovered on their return to Pariang was a village in desperate need of clean water, medical care and schools.
Madut has decided to focus his efforts on getting water to the village, by raising money to hire the people and equipment necessary to drill new wells.
Karen Puckett, who helped to organize Maduts weekend visit to Salisbury, said the aim in Rowan County will be to create a coalition to tackle manageable projects in Sudan, such as drilling wells for water.
Several people attending Maduts presentation Friday night signed up to be part of that group.
In 2001, the United States awarded refugee status to roughly 3,800 Lost Boys, a name rescue workers monitoring their flight had given the youth.
The name is based on the fictional Peter Pan characters who as children were cast into a world of adults.
The Lost Boys story has been the subject of documentaries, books, newspaper articles and television reports. Madut has lived it.
Heres a brief history, as given by one Lost Boys foundation and described by Madut Friday night:
Sudan is a divided country separated primarily by Arab Muslims in the North and black Christian/Animists (tribal traditionalists) in the South.
After the British moved out Sudanese independence was declared in 1956, Northerners gained control of the country and sought to form a united, Islamic Sudan, setting up a conflict with the mostly Christian South.
The North declared a holy jihad against the South, prompting a long civil war. Northern militias would frequently raid and destroy villages in the South, killing people at random.
Many of the surviving women and children were captured and taken as slaves to the North.
Over time, more than 2 million people died, and millions of others were displaced.
Many young boys in southern Sudan spent time away from their villages in cattle camps and would return to find their villages destroyed and families killed or taken captive. Elders often encouraged them to flee rather than risk capture and be forced to become soldiers.
The thousands of Lost Boys who were separated from their families walked in large groups for about three months before reaching the safety of Ethiopia. Many of the boys died along the way from starvation, disease or attacks by wild animals, such as lions.
The homeless boys stayed in Ethiopia for about four years before civil war broke out in that country, forcing them to flee again. They walked back toward war-torn Sudan, and again many died on that journey or when they tried to cross the flooded Gilo River.
Some of the boys were swept away by river currents, eaten by crocodiles, attacked by hippos or killed by gunfire.
The survivors hid in the bush of Sudan for about a year-and-a-half before walking to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Rescue workers say the boys who made it to Kenya had walked some 1,000 miles.
The Lost Boys originally left Sudan in 1987 and arrived in Kenya five years later in 1992. They would spend the next nine years in the refugee camp, eating one meal a day.
Then came the large resettlement of Lost Boys less than 100 girls were included to cities all across the United States.
Many of the boys, by then young men, had never seen electric lights, utensils, television or even ridden in a vehicle.
North Carolina reportedly has 86 Lost Boys, spread among Charlotte, Greensboro and High Point.
Madut says he is probably 26 or 27 years old. Most of the Lost Boys dont know their ages. They were assigned ages in the United Nations refugee camp, and all were given the same birthdate of Jan. 1.
Madut landed a job within two months of his arrival in Atlanta. Today he lives in an apartment with five other Lost Boys. He has a part-time job as a cashier at a Publix grocery store and is enrolled in Georgia Perimeter College.
Coming to the United States for him, Madut said, was a gift from God.
When Madut first arrived in Atlanta, he and other Lost Boys were given support for three months from a now defunct Lost Boys foundation and a Lutheran ministries group.
After that, they were pretty much left to fend for themselves another challenge to survive.
As he spoke and answered questions Friday night, Madut stood in front of a large screen showing the video he had taken on his visit to Pariang last spring.
The problem of water in that area is a big problem, Madut said. My dream is to help my country with water projects.
Southern Sudan has a transitional, democratic government but the north is ruled by a Muslim dictator. A vote is scheduled in 2011 to determine whether Sudan should be divided into two countries or be unified.
Madut prays for two separate countries. Otherwise, the attempt to make one Sudan will lead to more civil war and genocide, he said.
Im thinking separation is the key, he said.
The government-sponsored militia attacks that destroyed the Lost Boys families and villages and forced them to flee Sudan is a near carbon copy of the firebombing, raping and plunder of Darfur to the west.
A main difference is that the people of Darfur are mainly Muslim.
Hundreds of thousands have been killed in the Darfur region, and millions have been forced from their homes.
Madut could not find his brother in Sudan last year. His sister-in-law has died. His nephew, a fourth-grader, is attending a boarding school in Uganda.
With the help of Atlanta friends, Madut is paying for the school.
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@salisburypost.com.