Africa has been in a war zone contained in primitive villages of Southern Sudan. Muslims have randomly and visciously attacked, raided and pillaged countless innocent families. Slaughtering the heads of households raping and killing their women and children, those that they permit to survive only to be used as slaves and concubines of the evil opponents, the muslims. They captured of the males of the village only to enslave them into their own culture. Deng is my “self adopeted” Sudanes son, he is approximately 6ft 9 and beautifully dark as the night sky, his smile lights up a room his story and life of survival is truly that of a hero. A hero born in challenging circumstances that is able to overcome all obstacles, as a child unknowingly he discovered in himself a character that denied being pulled down. This is a story about a hero and also to the reader a chance to look around and know that heros walk among us. I look at Deng and wonder so often what can I do in this world to compare to his attributes perhaps you will find yourself pondering the same questions.

Paul Denga Kur is a survivor of a genocide still occurring in Southern Sudan. As a boy of 6 he like any other little boy of his village grew up in a close knit family tending the herds and playing with his fellow neighbors, idealic in his mind. Although he was vaguely aware there was a danger that would cause fear in the elders of the village of other men referred to as “ “ He wasn’t clear as to the ramifications of this fear , afterall he was only six years of age.

One dreadful day as he and the other boys from the village were out tending to their herds searching for “greener pastures”, for the animals to graze on, little did he know that his village was under attack! As he stretched in the blazing sun and played childhood games while tending the herds his village and family was being terrorized by the muslim pirates. This would be a turning point in his life that no child should ever have to endure.

“You may have heard of the Lost Boys from Sudan, a name given to the groups of over 20,000 boys from Nuer and Dinka Christian tribes of South Sudan. The millions of innocents that were displaced and or/ orphaned during the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005). Approximatley 2.5 million Sudanese were killed. So many more were affected in numerous awful ways that we as Americans can not even imagine. The name Lost Boys from Sudan was colloquially used by aid workers in the refugee camps where the boys resided in Sudan.

The southern areas of Sudan are rich in agricultural resources, gold, uranium and oil. The regime in Khartoum wants total control of these areas to harness these resources to accomplish their own agenda which they have never hidden – the Islamization of the black south (turning everone into a Muslim, in this case by force) followed by the Arabization of the black tribes turning everone into an Arab through teaching, marriage forcing their language and culture. If this were ever accomplished in South Sudan the movement of radical fundamentalist Islam would continue its march onward south to other African countries .

This effort by this rogue and barbaric regime breaks every rule in the book when it comes to human rights and religious freedom. The disarray in Sudan is complicated with the composition of several military forces , The Regular Government of Sudan army (GOS), the popular Defense Force, PDF which is recruited from moderate Muslim tribes into the jihad and the National Islamic /front NIF which is the politico/religious