my life under the trees: the story of a lost boy from south sudan
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PRAISEFOR
MYLIFEUNDERTHETREES
Abraham Mangars account of his journey from the South
Sudan to Omaha opens the world of the lost boys who were
wrenched from their families during turbulent times in their
homeland. Each boy has a unique story, and Abraham tells his
tale with an honest heart, placed in the historical context of the
time. He survived to tell the experiences he and others faced, and
we are enlightened by his willingness to tell the truth.
Steve Jordon,Te Omaha World-Herald
Author,Te Oracle & Omaha: How Warren Buffett
And His Hometown Shaped Each Other
In Abrahams deeply personal account, he not only gives
clarity to this important part of South Sudans history and helps
you gain a greater appreciation for the struggle and hardshipsendured, he also inspires us with a story of the strength and
resiliency of the human spirit as well as a story of Gods presence
and providence, even in the darkest of places and circumstances.
Rev. Gregory Berger,
Messiah Lutheran Church, Omaha, Nebraska
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The Story of a Lost Boyfrom South Sudan
MY LIFE- UNDER -
THE TREES
ABRAHAMMANGARWITHJIMTHOMPSON
JIENGPUBLISHING
Omaha, NE
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2014 Abraham Mangar. All rights reserved. No part o this book maybe used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording, taping or by any inormation storageretrieval system without the written permission o the publisher except in the
case o brie quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Jieng Publishing books may be ordered rom your avorite bookseller.www.JiengPublishing.com
Jieng Publishingc/o CMI13518 L. StreetOmaha, NE 68137
Because o the dynamic nature o the internet, any web addresses or linkscontained in this book may have changed since publication and may nolonger be valid.
ISBN: 978-0-9913365-0-0 (paperback)ISBN: 978-0-9913365-1-7 (Mobi)ISBN: 978-0-9913365-2-4 (epub)
LCCN data on file with the publisher
Printed in the USA10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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AbrahamwithhiswifeAcholandtheirdaughteralsonamedAchol.
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CONTENTS
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
A BRIEFHISTORYOFSOUTHSUDANANDTHESPLM/A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
CHAPTER1 THEPROPHECYUNDERTHETAMARINDTREE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
CHAPTER2 PLEAFORSAFETYINTHEWILDERNESS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CHAPTER3 REST, REVIVAL, ANDTHERIVERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
CHAPTER4 ONESHOTMEANSWEFOUNDWATER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
CHAPTER5 DEADLYCROSSINGINTOETHIOPIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
CHAPTER6 SUCHANUNDESIRABLELIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
CHAPTER7 LONGLINESTOSEETHEDOCTOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
CHAPTER8 NEVERADAYWITHOUTDEATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
CHAPTER9 EATINGJUSTTOSURVIVE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
CHAPTER10 GROUPTENANDTHEWILDANIMALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
CHAPTER11 NEVERLOSEYOURHOSPITALCARD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
CHAPTER12 THEDIRTDOESNOTLIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
CHAPTER13 UNITEDNATIONSRATIONSARRIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
CHAPTER14 COLLECTINGGRASSBRINGSMOREPROBLEMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
CHAPTER15 A BEDFORGEUANDOTHERSURPRISES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
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CHAPTER16 A SPECIALGUEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
CHAPTER17 MILITARYTRAINING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
CHAPTER18 THEWEAPONISOURFATHERANDMOTHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
CHAPTER19 WHATKINDOFCAMPISTHIS?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
CHAPTER20 PUNISHMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
CHAPTER21 GEUBECOMESABRAHAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
CHAPTER22 HOWTOMAKEABEDINCAMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
CHAPTER23 SPLM/A ISOUSTEDFROMETHIOPIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
CHAPTER24 REFUGEESINOUROWNCOUNTRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
CHAPTER25 FIGHTINGSTARVATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
CHAPTER26 WORSTPOSSIBLENEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
CHAPTER27 UNPLEASANTDUTIESANDTROUBLEDEYES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
CHAPTER28 WARREACHESTHEBOYS CAMP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
CHAPTER29 A LITTLERELIEFFORGEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
CHAPTER30 GODMUSTBECLOSERTOTHEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
CHAPTER31 THEKAKUMAREFUGEECAMP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
CHAPTER32 LIVINGOFFTHELAND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
CHAPTER33 REFLECTIONSONTHESPLM/A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
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As one o the Lost Boys o Sudan, I have always elt thatone o the hardest parts o our story is the one sometimestold by those who did not actually live that story. Also, I would
like to clariy that most o us were not separated rom our parents
because our villages were attacked in the middle o the night andwe had to run to a sae place, although that may have happened
to some people that I did not meet. I just hated this part o the
history because that makes our parents look like they were the
most careless parents in the entire world. In reality, we were not
boys who got lost, magically met somewhere, and somehow led
ourselves to saety many hundreds o miles away. Like I state in
the beginning o the book, Dr. John Garang, himsel, ordered the
South Sudanese governors to send boys rom different regions to
Ethiopia so they could (eventually) attend school.
My biggest motivator or writing this book, though, is the
act that many o my ellow Lost Boys think some o the things we
went through are degrading to our image and also humiliating,
but I simply look at them as the scars o our many struggles.
o me, there is nothing embarrassing about our past since, most
o the time, we had no other choice but to try to survive. For
example, i I did not try to eat things that looked inedible, then
I might not be here todayI could have died o hunger. Since
most o the Lost Boys in my new hometown in Omaha, Nebraska,
PREFACE
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MY LIFE UNDER THE TREES 2
are not rom the same groups in the Pignudo reugee camp,
every time we were together we told each other what happened
in our groups. Te stories sound unny now, even though the
experiences were horrible. I know that or most people readingthis book, it will be hard to believe that we are still alive afer
some o the things that happened to us. Tere are also parts in
the book that can make you laugh, tear up, and shake your head.
When I and five other Lost Boys immigrated to Omaha in
2001, we were sponsored by Lutheran Family Services and settled
into a house provided by that organization. About three weeks
later, a man named Bob Head and his wie Willow came to seeus and offered their help afer reading an article about us in the
Omaha World Heraldnewspaper. Te next week, Bob talked to
his pastor at Christ the King Church to see i they would sponsor
us, and they did. In the meantime, Bob helped us find jobs and
an apartment.
Afer living in America or our years, I decided to get a
commercial class A drivers license so I could drive semi trucks.I called Bob Head to see i he could help me find a commercial
driving school where I could be trained and get my license. Afer
driving cross-country or five months, I knew I needed a job
closer to home. I was happy to quit cross-country driving due to
the truck-stop ood and, worst o all, the loneliness.
Bobs riend, Jim Tompson, gave me a job driving or the
company at which he worked. Jim and I came to know each other
better and became close riends. Every time we had a chance to
talk, I would tell him a little bit more about the Lost Boys beore
we came to the United States.
He ofen told me that I should write a book about my
experiences because it would be so interesting. Afer thinking
about it or some time, I called Jim and asked him i he had the
time to edit my memoir i I wrote it. Afer he read my first three
pages, he asked many questions to help me clariy the narration
o the story. So as I wrote, he helped me greatly; sometimes the
editing went ast and sometimes we would spend a lot o time
editing just a hal a page until the book was finally done. Te
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Sudan has not been ree rom civil war since 1955. Tere wasalways a divide between the Arab-Muslim north o Sudanand the Arican-Christian south o Sudan. Tis divide was caused
by the uneven distribution o natural resources and development,
as well as an effort by the north to impose Islam on the Christiansouth. Even though most o the natural resources were located
in the south, the primarily Arabic north held all o the power
by using the South-Sudanese resources or urther development
in the north, to the exclusion o the south. In addition, South-
Sudanese students were generally only allowed to study at higher
levels o education i they became Muslim.
Because o these and other inequities, the first civil war
broke out in 1955 when some South Sudanese ormed a
rebellion that was called the Anyanya (which means snake/
scorpion venom in the Madi language). Te Anyanya lasted
or seventeen years until the Addis Ababa Agreement and
peace treaty was signed in 1972.
As time passed, however, the north started violating the
terms o the agreement, so actions in the south started meeting
secretly to discuss these inequities and treaty violations. Te
government in Khartoum (Sudans capital city which is located
in the northern part o the country) began to suspect rebellion
in the south. So it ordered Unit 105, a group o five-hundred
A BRIEFHISTORYOFSOUTH
SUDANANDTHESPLM/A
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MY LIFE UNDER THE TREES 6
southern soldiers stationed in Mading-Bor (now simply known
as Bor own) suspected o being rebels, to be reassigned to the
north so the government could monitor their activities. Unit
105 was under the command o Kerubino Kuanyin Bol and theyreused to obey the order, so the government sent troops to Bor
to orce the relocation.
When the government troops arrived in May 1983, Unit 105
opened fire on them, retreated into the bush, and later escaped to
Ethiopia. A day later, Unit 104, under the command o William
Nyoun Bany, killed some government officials in Ayod and then
fled to Ethiopia, where they joined orces with Kerubino andUnit 105.
Many South Sudanese intellectuals sympathetic to the
rebellion had gathered in Bor to support the rebellion. However,
when Units 105 and 104 attacked the government troops, they
had to pretend (or their own security) that they were not part o
that rebellion.
Only when the South-Sudanese intellectuals knew it was
sae could they lead students, police, and others to Ethiopia and
join Units 105 and 104 who were already there. Tis is where
they ormed the SPLM/A (Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/
Army). Dr. John Garang, Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, William Nyoun
Bany, and Salva Kiir Mayardit, who is the current president o
South Sudan, became the leaders o the SPLA (the Army). Te
political-movement branch (SPLM) was led by Joseph Oduho,
Martin Majier Gai, and others.
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Several months afer the SPLM/A organized in the mid 1980s,some o the SPLA officers returned to their villages orpolitical visits. Tese visits were an effort to send rebel members to
encourage the local men to join the SPLA. During these enlistment
campaigns, the villagers were not told exactly what they wereabout to get themselves into; they were just told what they wanted
to hearlike they would be given ree weapons or the protection
o their cattleand this encouraged them to volunteer. Many boys
and men considered this good news and they lef with the SPLA.
Afer several years, some o the newly trained and ully
equipped SPLA soldiers returned to their villages or visits. o
those o us who had not gone away to train, it was as i we had
missed out on something important. Tree o my amily had
already joined, and every time one o my cousins or uncles who
was in the military visited, I would go to him so I could check out
his gun and ask questions. We younger boys always wished we
were old enough that we could be in the army and have an AK-
47. Everything about military lie sounded and looked good to
me in my small Dinka village in the Bor region o South Sudan,
and I would copy the way the new soldiers walked.
One day an SPLM/A soldier who was passing by decided to
stop at the tamarind tree where my riends and I were playing.
He told us to gather around him, and he started to teach us the
INTRODUCTION
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1
As a six-year-old, I didnt think leaving home meantbeing separated rom my parents; it sounded morelike visiting some relatives in another village. I thought that
maybe I would be gone or a ew years because I remembered
that many young men rom my home area had lef to receivemilitary training and had been gone or about that same period
o time. So I was hoping I would return afer about two years to
see my parents.
But as it turned out, that did not happen. Neither our parents,
nor we, had any choice in this matter. Our parents rights were
taken away when Dr. John Garang ordered the boys in South
Sudan to go to Ethiopia or schooling. Dr. Garang ordered the
governors o all the southern states to collect the boys in their
villages with no regard or how the parents might eel. All o the
village chies were called to a special assembly where they were
told that each o them had to register all o the boys in his village.
Our governor took a stick, showed it to the chies, and said,
Te youngest has to be at least the height o this stick, and i you
ail to bring the boys rom your village by the date mentioned,
you will be arrested and your cattle will be confiscated. Te
chies did not question these directives, and they registered every
boy in their villages with or without the parents knowledge. So
I, my ten-year-old brother Nhial, and our o our cousins were
THEPROPHECYUNDER
THETAMARINDTREE
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MY LIFE UNDER THE TREES 10
registered to go to Ethiopia by our chie. My our-year-old
younger brother Jacob was too small to go.
The Lost Boys of Sudan
Most of the children who became known as
the Lost Boys of Sudan were from the Dinka and
Nuer ethnic groups, which are the primary tribes in
South Sudan. While many were ofcially taken by
the SPLM/A for schooling, others were the survivors
of the destruction and devastation inicted on
South Sudan by the Khartoum government in the
north that was trying to squash rebellion.
The common local term for those children who
later became known as the Lost Boys was jesh al-
hamer, which literally means Red Army in Arabic.It came from the Russian/Communist term for those
who rebelled against the current government. It is
commonly thought to refer to children in the militia
who were under the age of eighteen, but became
a term that refers to all of the boys and girls who
were taken by the SPLM/A. In fact, there is now aRed Army Foundation in South Sudan.
It is also important to note that the term
Lost Boys of Sudan was coined by aid workers
in the Ethiopian refugee camps. It referred to
the characters in Peter Panby J.M. Barrie called
the Lost Boys, who were orphans left to fend for
themselves.
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ABRAHAM MANGAR 11
Many o the parents o the boys, but especially our mothers,
were not happy about the idea that the SPLM/A was going to
take their boys to Ethiopia or schooling. Most o them would
cry and curse the chies and the SPLM/A leaders at the same
time or taking their children away at such a young age. We were
ignorant about such things, however, and the journey to Ethiopia
just sounded exciting to us.
Te SPLM/A leaders tried to make it sound interesting by
telling our parents and us that we would live in a well-organizedplace and that we would do nothing but go to school and study.
Tey said our ood would be prepared by cooks like they did here
in our school, but it was still hard to convince our parents. Yet
Dr. John Garang, 19452005
John Garang was a Dinka who completedhis higher education in Tanzania and the United
States and earned his Ph.D. in economics in 1981
at Iowa State University. Upon his return to South
Sudan, he became a leader in the rebellion. After
the 1972 peace agreement, he remained in the
military and due to his intelligence and abilities
as a military strategist, he eventually rose to a
military-planning position within the Khartoum
government. However, when sent to Bor in 1983 to
quell the Unit 105 rebellion, he sided with his own
people and ed with the rebels to Ethiopia and
started the SPLM/A. Garang died in a helicopter
crash in 2005 and did not live to see South Sudan
become an independent nation at midnight on
July 9, 2011.
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ABRAHAM MANGAR 13
or change your position. I you need to relieve yoursel, dont go
so ar that we cannot hear you, just in case something happens.
Afer all o the instructions were given, we were told that it
was time to leave. Some SPLM/A soldiers went ahead o us, somewalked on each side o us, and another group stayed behind or
about hal an hour to make sure that there was nobody lef. Te
lead army group was to make sure that there were no enemy
ahead o us and to find drinkable water.
On the first day o our journey, around our thousand o us
only walked or about three hours and then slept on the ground
or the rest o the night. We walked bareoot on cattle or animaltrails through the grassland carrying nothing. Te next day, we
stayed under the trees waiting or cooler conditions. At around
three oclock in the afernoon, a whistle was blown to inorm
everybody that we were about to leave.
Te first whistle was to inorm us that we would be leaving
in thirty minutes, and then a second whistle meant to assemble
and prepare to leave. We assembled by subdivision and all o the
boys in Makuac (my subdivision that indicated where I was rom
in the Bor) gathered. Afer about ten minutes, it was announced
that we would be leading the way that day. We were so happy to
hear that our subdivision was the one to lead the way, and we
immediately lef going toward the east.
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