John Bul Dau explores territory few can imagine—the depths of inhumanity and the boundaries of endurance. In 1987, at age 13, Dau fled his home in southern Sudan, narrowly escaping troops sent to exterminate all black Christian males. As his village was burned, women raped, children enslaved, and young men shot, Dau began a perilous journey spanning more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) and 14 years.
He joined thousands of boys, now known as the "Lost Boys of Sudan," who were crossing sub-Saharan Africa on foot—pursued by armed soldiers, wild animals, starvation, dehydration, and disease. "We chewed tall grasses and ate mud to stay alive," Dau remembers. "I was barefoot and wearing no clothes; at night the desert was so cold. We thought about our parents all the time."
As one of the older boys, Dau led and cared for younger children. More than half of them died. The survivors found temporary relief in an Ethiopian refugee camp, but when the government was overthrown, they fled across the Gilo River back to Sudan. "Rebels were shooting at us, so we had to dive into water infested with crocodiles," Dau recounts. "Thousands of boys were eaten, drowned, shot, or captured."........