News Article by AP posted on January 02, 2001 at 10:39:44: EST (-5 GMT)
Refugees from Sudan find new life in Richmond
By MASHA HERBST
Associated Press Writer
RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- Fourteen-year-old Maker Mabior
Marial
had been on the run for five years when he arrived at
Kakuma
refugee camp in Kenya in 1992.
The mud huts, pit toilets and meager food rations of Kakuma
brought some
relief for Maker and thousands of other young boys who
fled their homes in
southern Sudan in 1987-88. They had walked
hundreds of miles (kilometers)
across eastern Africa, battling
hunger, exhaustion, disease, ruthless armies
and wild animals
before finally reaching Kenya.
"We faced so many different things on the way," Maker said.
Maker arrived in the United States in late November, having
spent eight
years at Kakuma. He lives with four other Sudanese
refugees, all in their
late teens and early 20s. The boys are
casualties of a 17-year civil war
between pro-Islamic government
forces in northern Sudan and rebel brigades in
the Christian and
animist South.
Maker and his roommates are only five of 3,600 boys being
resettled in the
United States through a program run by the U.S.
State Department and the
United Nations.
Age has all but lost its meaning for them. Stripped of their
childhood by
more than a decade of inordinate suffering, the boys
also lost their parents
and their homeland. They are called,
appropriately, the "Lost Boys."
"They've had a journey of Biblical proportions," said Jane
Mendenhall,
coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, which
is helping resettle
some of the boys.
Between 300 and 400 have come to the United States since
November, and
several dozen are starting new lives in Richmond.
The refugees are divided into two groups: the 18-and-overs and
the
unaccompanied minors. About 25 of the minors are being placed
in foster care
or in group homes around Richmond, where they will
attend school.
"They're bright," said Olivia Faries, arrival coordinator for
Catholic
Charities. "They have all been very motivated to attend
what schooling was
available in the camp."
The organization expects to place about 15 more, but it is
unclear how
soon they will arrive, Faries said.
Seven refugees in the Richmond area are in the 18-and-over
category, and
are receiving aid from the Refugee and Immigration
Services of the Catholic
Diocese of Richmond. The Diocese receives
a one-time dlrs 270 grant per
refugee from the government. It
provides the rest of the money to help them
get on their feet until
they find jobs.
"Our goal is to get them financially independent as soon as we
can,"
Mendenhall said.
They will get entry-level jobs at hotels, restaurants and
factories, doing
work completely foreign to them. Boys like the
five roommates in Richmond
never learned to work because they fled
their homes when they were very
young.
Government troops from northern Sudan attacked Maker's village
in the
southern part of the country in 1987. When the troops
descended on his
village, the people scattered, and Maker was
separated from his parents and
siblings. He and his uncle joined a
group of thousands of Sudanese -- mostly
young boys -- walking to
Ethiopia, 400 miles (644 kilometers) to the east.
Shortly after they crossed the Nile, which bisects Sudan, Maker
watched
his uncle die in an air raid by government forces.
The refugees settled in a camp in Ethiopia for several years.
But when the
Ethiopian government collapsed in 1991, the boys were
forced back into Sudan
at bayonet-point. Finding nothing to stay
for, they continued wearily on to
Kakuma.
Speaking softly but without hesitation, Maker recounted tragedy
after
tragedy.
"Before we could go back to Sudan there was a small river,
called Gilo
River. But most of the children don't know how to swim,
so we lost so many
children," he said.
Although it is impossible to pin down the exact number of
Sudanese who
fled southern Sudan in the late 1980s, estimates run
as high as 30,000. Only
12,000 made it to Kakuma. Many died on the
way, but some went back to Sudan
or were recruited by opposition
forces to fight in the civil war.
Peter Magok Majang, who lives with Maker, said he survived by
running.
"When they are shooting, you just run out and you don't know
where to go.
You just run," he said. After his parents were killed
in an attack on his
village, he fled to the bush, where he joined a
group going to Ethiopia.
The boys appear content, even cheerful, despite the horrors they
have
endured. They are consumed with the task of adjusting to life
in the United
States, and are interested in everything, Mendenhall
said.
"They really have landed on another planet," she said.