Anthieng (Betty) Majak, then aged 18, from Braybrook College, in Melbourne’s west, writes about her life’s journey in Refugees: Telling Their Stories, a publication of the winners and finalists of UNHCR’s [Australian] High School Writing Competition, 2005 [pdf 1,237Kb].
ATHIENG’S STORY is entitled: “A DEEP PAINFUL MEMORY”. It begins
I was a refugee for almost 12 years, from 1992 – 2003 in Kenya. Being a refugee is very hard and living in another country is difficult. It is especially hard to live in refugee camps where you don’t have any parents or a person who loves you to take care of you. But I was lucky to have my sister and brother with me.
Before I went to Kenya I was in Ethiopia for about 2 years. I was four years old. I lived with my sister and brother. The problems in Sudan were the reason why we left our homeland and went to Ethiopia. After some months people escaped out of Ethiopia because Ethiopia itself had problems. That was in 1991.
Another published story teller is David Sam, then aged 19, Cyril Jackson Senior Campus, WA.
In my country there is a long history of conflict between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Islamic people. In 1986 I was born in a small village in Torit, Southern Sudan. Soon after I was born the civil war erupted again and our village was attacked. The SPLA soldiers were arresting men in our village to go to war. The fighting between the soldiers and the villagers lasted for three hours. My dad was arrested and taken to their barracks. The rest of my family and I hid in the bush. When the fighting stopped thousands and thousands of people had been killed and everything had been destroyed.
David continues:
Many people fled from Sudan but my family and I moved to Juba, a large town in Southern Sudan. The journey there was very dangerous. My dad escaped from the barracks and met us with a car. We drove very slowly through the forest on a muddy road. We could hear gunshots and bombs but we could not see the soldiers hiding in the bush. Even though we were scared and had nothing to eat or drink, it was a great day because we were so lucky to pass through that terrible war.
The publications acknowledges input from Ariane Rummery, External Relations Officer with the UNHCR.
