“Lost Boys” return to Georgia Southern

November 2, 2006

Two ‘Lost Boys of Sudan” make a return visit to Georgia Southern University to discuss their refugee experience on Monday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m. in Russell Union Ballroom. The two, Jacob Magot and Nathaniel Nyok, are part of a group of orphaned refugees, the ‘Lost Boys,” who journeyed to the United States after they were forced from their villages as young children.

Their story began in 1987 in southern Sudan. As the boys tended their cattle, extremist Islamic Arabs from northern Sudan attacked their villages, killing their parents and sisters. The now-orphaned boys ran away and headed east. Weeks went by before they reached an Ethiopian refugee camp.

When war broke out in Ethiopia, the boys were forced to return to Sudan and walk on to Kenya. Years passed before the United States sympathized with their plight and opened its doors to the ‘Lost Boys.” In 2001, nearly 4,000 ‘Lost Boys” came to the United States seeking freedom, peace and education.

‘It is a little complex, what it means to be a Lost Boy, what it took for us to become Lost Boys,” Magot said. ‘I’m a grown-up man now, but I have lost an important time in my life to be a child.”

The ‘Lost Boys” presentation is free and open to the public and sponsored by the Multicultural Student Center and the Center for International Studies. For more information, call (912) 681-5409.