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The first time I met Isaac in our little village of Turalei, in southern Sudan, I could tell he had a mind of his own. The other kids were laughing at the puppet I had pulled out of my pocket, but he stood back as if sizing me up. Like many of Sudan's young people, who have grown up during the longest-running civil war in Africa, Isaac is only too familiar with guns, bombs, and fighting. But maybe he had never seen a white person before.
The history of this war is as twisted as the courses of the many rivers that paint the landscape of Sudan, the largest country on the African continent. The country as a whole has known only eleven years of peace since gaining its independence from British-Egyptian rule in 1956. In the south especially, where many Christians live, four decades of civil war have taken a heavy toll.
The latest outbreak of violence began in 1983, when resistance fighters organized to oppose the northern government and its imposition of Islamic law. Since then, millions of southern Sudanese have fled their homes. An estimated two million are dead because of fighting or deprivation associated with the war. Additionally, pro-regime militias have raided southern villages, taking thousands of hostages to sell into the slave trade.
Lost Childhood. I sought to befriend Isaac in…
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