Abraham and I were far from alone when we reached Pinyudu. The civil war in Sudan had touched millions of lives. Many had been killed on both sides. We were among the lucky ones who survived, although we did not feel lucky.
More than a quarter-million refugees from Sudan’s civil war poured into Pinyudu and three other camps in Ethiopia in 1988. An even greater number probably died from human violence, animal attacks, hunger, thirst, and disease. Both Martha and I arrived in Pinyudu that year, but our paths didn’t cross until much later.
Almost all of the survivors were male teenagers and boys as young as three or four. Older men had gone to war as soldiers or been killed in battle. Women and girls had been captured, killed, enslaved, or raped, leaving only a few hundred to reach Ethiopia.
At the time, the world paid little attention to the war and its victims because East Africa is so isolated and so seldom featured in the world’s news. Eventually, news reporters from Europe and America began to learn about the refugees who had walked, like me, to safety and begun to scratch out a living in Ethiopia. They called us Lost Boys. They took the name from characters in the book Peter Pan.
News reporters called Pinyudu a “camp,” but it was just a big, open place with no houses except a few belonging to the local Anyuak people. It had no fences, no running water, and no electricity. Everyone sat under trees or built shelters out of sticks. Abraham stayed with me for about two months and then went to live with other adults. I lived with boys who were mostly my age or somewhat younger. There were too many of us for adults to take care of, so the adults put some of the older boys like me in charge of the younger ones. At only thirteen years old, I became the supervisor of 1,200 boys. I made sure that sick boys got medical attention and oversaw the distribution of food.
We made our first huts without tools. I showed my group how to get wood from the forest outside camp without axes or saws. I climbed a tree until I got to the high branches. Then I grabbed a stout branch and jumped. As I fell, my weight bent the branch until it broke. Everyone watched and then copied me. That is how we got small logs for our hut. Then we pulled up grass in the camp and let it dry to make a roof.
We stayed hungry for many months. Once in a while we killed a crocodile in the river and ate it, but often we would go for days without food. Those were dark, difficult times.