I Have Had to Learn To Live With Peace; How do you make a new life for yourself when you're consumed with the pain of your past?(Sudanese refugee shares his story of survival and recovery)

Publication: Newsweek

Publication Date: 31-OCT-05

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2005 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com

Byline: Alephonsion Deng (Deng lives in La Mesa, Calif.)

In 1989, when government troops attacked my village in southern Sudan, my peaceful world fell apart. As a boy of 7 I ran barefoot and naked into the night and joined up with streams of other boys trying to escape death or slavery. We crossed a thousand miles of war-ravaged country without hope of sanctuary. Bullets replaced food, medicine, shelter and my loving parents. I lived on wild vegetables, ate mud from Mother Earth and drank urine from my own body.

We walked for five years, occasionally finding shelter at a refugee camp, only to have to leave again when it was attacked by Sudanese soldiers. Finally we made it to a camp in Kenya, where I lived for nearly a decade on a half cup of cornmeal...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.