The Lost Boys of Sudan

Known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, this small yet growing group of young men are beginning to share their stories that span from central Africa to the United States.

When civil war broke out in Sudan during the 1980s, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. Relocated in refugee camps, many children had witnessed the murders of their family, and often were the only members of their community to survive.

These orphans were ultimately allowed to relocate to the United States, to begin a new life in a very different environment. Aten Aleu, one of the Lost Boys, shares his story of losing his family, coming to America and ultimately finding solace in teaching art to other refugees.

His Story

Atem Aleu stood quietly to the side as a crowd milled around the art gallery, taking in the paintings that had traveled thousands of miles from Kenya to Minneapolis.

Aleu journey of survival began at the age of eight years when conflict forced him to leave his native country of Sudan.

Atem Aleu, formerly of Sudan, stands in front of an art exhibit Saturday at the Children’s Theatre. The art exhibit featured the work of the Sudanese people, including Aleu, and an art response done by local high school students. Traveling by foot, he and two of his seven brothers went to Ethiopia seeking safety from the civil war.

As for the rest of his family, his father was dead and his mother was forced to drown in a river with her young son after she refused to give him up to the rebels.

Aleu lived in Ethiopia for three years until violence broke out there, and he fled to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. He reached the compound in 1991 when he was 12 years old. Only one of his brothers survived the journey.

Living in Kakuma was better than living in Sudan, he said. Still, many people died in the camp due to lack of food and proper medical treatment.

Refugees in the camp received a small amount of corn, beans and oil that was meant to last the next 14 days, Aleu said. The food usually lasted seven to nine days. Refugees called the time without food “black days.” During this period people drank water and slept to conserve energy.

There are more than 90,000 refugees still living in the Kakuma camp, according to the United Nations. The camp has no electricity and only a few water pumps. Aleu said when he lived in the camp, refugees had to wait in line for 12 hours to collect fresh water.

Despite the conditions in the camp, Aleu said he attended a makeshift school and taught himself to paint as a way of expressing his past struggles.

He said he first heard about America after seeing “Made in U.S.A.” on a bag of food from the United Nations. After learning about the country, it became his dream to go there, he said.

As his art began to gain attention by the aid workers in the camp, Aleu received asylum in the United States, with the hope that he would share his story through art.

In 2001, Aleu settled in Utah and is finishing his art degree at Brigham Young University. He plans to start his master’s degree next year.

There are thousands of other people just like him in the United States. They are called “The Lost Boys of Sudan.”

“So they cannot forget our story”

At one time, Aleu said, others laughed at his idea to use art as a way to tell his story, but now he travels the country speaking about the “Lost Boys of Sudan.”

Aleu founded the African Refugees Artists Club to educate and fund refugee artists living in Kakuma.

“What you can do is give them knowledge,” he said, “that (no one) can take away.”

Aside from creating art, Aleu was the first “lost boy” to have a car in Utah and now drives the other boys around. They even call the car “Mother of the Lost Boys,” he said, because it cares for them all.

Aleu is also known as a strong advocate for the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which passed in the United Nations in 2005, he said.

Despite the violence Aleu saw, he said he refuses to forget those left behind in Kakuma camp.

“I’ve been in that situation,” he said. “And I don’t want them to be in that situation anymore.”

- Part of this story was originally published in The Minnesota Daily newspaper.

More information about Atem Aleu can be found at: http://www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/exhibitions/lostBoys/