FMR 27 Out of Africa: misrepresenting Sudan’s ‘Lost Boys’ 65

‘low-scale’ ethnically motivated more needs to be done to establish a realisation of rights by IDPs during security incidents such as physical secure environment for sustainable their displacement and facilitation and verbal assaults/threats, arson, return, to guarantee returnees of conditions in which they can stoning, intimidation, harassment, access to services and to promote reach a free and informed decision looting, and ‘high-scale’ incidents reintegration. Ethnically-based crimes on whether to return or integrate. such as shootings and murders.”8 and incidents must be investigated and avenues for redress established. Anika Krstic ([email protected]) is UNHCR reports that 12,700 persons the Secretary General of the Serbian from minority groups have so far Refugee Council. SRC is a non- returned to Kosovo (6,000 Serbs, Looking ahead governmental organisation working 3,300 Egyptians, 1,400 Roma and to find durable solutions for refugees, 1,150 Bosniaks). IDPs from Serbia The decision on the final status of IDPs and other forced migrants mostly return to rural areas where Kosovo – originally expected in and advocating state ratification they constitute a majority. Urban November 2006 – will undoubtedly and respect for human rights returns are still lagging hugely have an impact on regional stability. conventions and protocols. To receive behind. The small number of returns It could either trigger new waves the SRC’s quarterly newsletter, is mainly due to the poor security of displacement or provide a please email [email protected] situation (where violent attacks framework for the resolution of on returnees are commonplace), age-old strife. A creative solution 1. G Ambroso, ‘The Balkans at a crossroads: progress and challenges in finding durable solutions for refugees lack of freedom of movement, will look for common interests, and displaced persons from the wars in the former bleak economic prospects and the rather than divisions. No sides Yugoslavia’, UNHCR Research Paper No. 133, November uncertain future status of Kosovo. should be given any excuses for 2006, p1 www.unhcr.org/research/RESEARCH/4552f2182. Displaced people are routinely undermining the return process. pdf 2. Data as of 31 August 2006 at statistics section, UNHCR prevented from recovering their Serbia and Montenegro webpage www.unhcr.org.yu/ homes or agricultural land, receiving Our experience shows that no default.aspx compensation for destroyed property equitable solution can be found 3. An Albanian-speaking minority, formerly associated or receiving rent from properties. without a comprehensive dialogue with the Roma, but now acknowledged as a separate between ethnic communities, using ethnic group. 4. An Albanian-speaking minority, the great majority In June 2006 a protocol on voluntary all available fora and procedures. An of whom fled Kosovo to escape persecution after 1999. and sustainable return was signed essential part of the dialogue is the www.ashkali.org.yu between UNMIK, the provisional commitment of leaders on all levels 5. A small Muslim Slavic minority, only half of whom self-government of Kosovo and the to encourage their constituencies to now remain in the mountainous Gora region of southern Kosovo. government of Serbia to establish interact. Security, financial support 6. For more information, see the Serbian Refugee Council preconditions for sustainable and and psychological motivation are report at www.ssi.org.yu/images/stories/SSIReports/ voluntary return of IDPs to Kosovo.9 vital for sustainable return, as AccessToRightsIDPsInSerbiaAnalyticalReportENG.doc This document could pave the way is the participation of minority 7. www.unmikonline.org/ for belated reversal of conflict-related communities in the negotiations and 8. Ambroso, p8 9. www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc. population movements but much will public administration of Kosovo. For htm?tbl=NEWS&id=448991e82 depend on its implementation. Much its part, Serbia needs to ensure full

Out of Africa: misrepresenting Sudan’s ‘Lost Boys’ by Brandy Witthoft

The US media has taken an intense interest in the experience resilience and wandering and ignored the key questions such as: how of a relatively small group of young males who walked from did a large number of male – but South Sudan to Ethiopia, spent up to a decade in the Kakuma hardly any female – adolescents refugee camp in Kenya and were eventually re-settled in the become separated from their USA in 2001. What is behind the celebrity status – and the families and survive a traumatic experience apparently unaided? cultural misunderstanding – of those dubbed the ‘Lost Boys’? Host-country media constructions of While working for a programme to between typical media narration of migrants and refugees shape the way integrate the ‘Lost Boys’ in Syracuse, their collective experience and the they are received. US print media, New York state, I became aware that recollections of individuals. Glib the Internet and church groups have there are significant discrepancies articles have focused on aloneness, endlessly retold and reshaped their 66 Out of Africa: misrepresenting Sudan’s ‘Lost Boys’ FMR 27

to develop strong bonds with their age mates. When their home villages were attacked, many were far away in cattle camps. Unable to return, did they really set off on an epic trek – unprompted and without compasses or geographical knowledge?

Rädda Barnen researchers first cast doubt on the naïve flight narrative in a 1994 report. They suggested that the group was guided to Ethiopian refugee camps by units of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army – the main southern Sudanese opposition, now leading the government of South Sudan. My interviews confirmed this is what happened as the ‘Lost Boys’ roamed hither and thither,

www.lostboysfilm.com uncertain where to go and unaware of the movements of Sudanese government forces. Far from being Peter Dut, ‘Lost collective narrative. ‘Lost Boy’ articles food, medicine, shelter and my loving left to their own devices, they said Boy’, collects are overwhelmingly sympathetic parents. I lived on wild vegetables, groups were often accompanied by supermarket trolleys, Olathe, and compassionate but tend towards ate mud from Mother Earth and a few adults and that other adults 2 Kansas sensationalist stereotyping. Coverage drank urine from my own body.” guided and helped them. One, who has pulled heart strings, got ‘Lost was six at the time, describes being Boys’ on the Oprah Winfrey show Stereotypes are reinforced carried much of the way by his uncle. and generated an outpouring of by US aid agencies: donations and assistance. However, The ex-‘Boys’ tell a story in which it has also dehumanised individual “Named after Peter Pan’s cadre of they endure difficulties and overcome members of the group. Articles gloss orphans, some 26,000 Sudanese boys were trauma thanks to their own efforts over the circumstances in which forced by violence from their southern and to the support of others. They each of the boys left home but give Sudan villages ... thousands died along describe the specific decisions they the impression they were forced to the way – they drowned, were eaten by made to survive and achieve their flee when their communities were wild animals, shot by military forces goals. Articles and films about them attacked by forces loyal to the Arab or overcome by hunger, dehydration or ignore their agency and portray them and Muslim government of Sudan. fatigue … Older boys – some just nine as helpless victims at the mercy of or ten – looked after the youngest ones fate until they were ‘discovered’ by The media and the Internet are and small cliques of boys formed their the international community and replete with misrepresentations: own family groups. Their only relief came eventually brought to America. when Red Cross helicopters dropped them “A group of 20,000 young boys formed, food or water.” American Red Cross3 Life in the USA has been a struggle. wandering the desert seeking safety. Some have now graduated from They became known as the ‘Lost Boys “No more than six or seven years old, college but accessing education has of Sudan.’ The boys crossed hundreds of they fled to Ethiopia to escape death or not been as easy as many had hoped. miles of desert. They faced enemy fire, induction into slavery and the northern Resettlement agencies and church lion attack and hunger. Thousands died army. They walked a thousand miles groups offering support concluded along the way. The survivors found safe through lion and crocodile country, that many were too old to complete haven in UN refugee camps in Ethiopia eating mud to stave off thirst and high school education. Forced into and then Kenya. With peace in the starvation. Wandering for years, low-paid menial employment many Sudan unforeseeable and without family half of them died before reaching the struggle to pay their bills, complete or opportunity in the camp, the US Kenyan refugee camp, Kakuma.” high school and send financial government decided to bring the ‘Lost International Rescue Committee4 support back to relatives in Sudan Boys’ to America. In 2001, four thousand or still languishing in Kakuma. of the boys, who are now young men, were Interviews with individual ‘Lost Boys’ given high priority refugee status and suggest a very different reality. Their Brandy Witthoft (bwitthof@ began settling all across America—from accounts confirm long-established maxwell.syr.edu) is a PhD student Houston to Kansas City, San Jose to Little anthropological research findings: at Syracuse University. Rock.” Publicity for ‘Lost Boys’ film.1 southern Sudanese boys do not hang around in their villages but may 1. www.lostboysfilm.com 2. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9785295/site/newsweek “As a boy of seven I ran barefoot and have to roam far in order to find 3. www.redcross.org/news/in/africa/0108lostboyspage. naked into the night and joined up with grazing for their families’ cattle herds. html streams of other boys trying to escape Male adolescents are traditionally 4. www.lostboysofsudan.com death or slavery … Bullets replaced expected to fend for themselves and