Together, we can change lives!

The Lost Boys and Girls began their journey in 1987 when their villages were attacked by the Khartoum Government. The United States Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Refugee Resettlement stated that Khartoum Government factions began to attack peaceful villages in South Sudan, kidnapping young males to use as front-line troops in battle zones or to walk through minefields. Fearing they would be targeted as potential combatants; many boys left their villages for refugee camps in Ethiopia. Some traveled with friends or relatives, others slipped away on their own at night. Few had any idea of what lay ahead of them, believing that their journey would last only a few days. Continually under threat, they fled for their lives, often losing their way, until due to hunger and lack of sleep that they could go no farther and sat down by the roadside, in danger of becoming prey for lions and other wild animals.

The survivors who reached refugee camps in Ethiopia began to lead relatively peaceful lives again. But this was not to last. Following the change of government in Ethiopia in May 1991, the Sudanese youths were forced to flee again. This time the journey occurred during heavy rains, and many perished crossing the swollen rivers or were hit by aerial bombardments. Hungry, frightened, and weakened by sleeplessness and disease, they made their way to camps in South Sudan, where they received help from the International Committee of the Red Cross. From there, they then traveled on foot to safety in northern Kenya. Since 1992, UNICEF has been able to reunite nearly one thousand two hundred boys with their families. But thousands more have remained in the dusty, fly-ridden refugee camp at Kakuma, where they have had to scrape for food and struggle for education.

By the year 2000, three hundred three thousand Lost Boys began the formal process of resettlement in the United States. Approximately one hundred Lost Boys currently reside in San Diego, California.