SUDAN: Refugees Hope to Reshape Sudan's future

Date: 
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Source: 
The Boston Globe
Countries: 
Africa
Eastern Africa
Sudan
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Human Rights

ARLINGTON — In the vicious civil war that consumed his homeland, Moses Geng Ajou's village in Southern Sudan was burned down twice. At 7 years old, he fled, joining thousands of Lost Boys who braved crocodile attacks and hunger in a long journey to safety that eventually landed them in the United States.

Now 30 years old, he joined a steady stream of South Sudanese refugees who converged at a community center in Arlington yesterday and registered to vote in a historic referendum next month that could dramatically reshape their homeland's future. From Jan. 9 to 15, South Sudanese at home and in several countries abroad will decide whether the mostly Christian and black southern part of Sudan should secede from the largely Arab and Muslim north.

“It would give the south the determination to decide their own fate,'' Ajou said at the South Sudanese Community Center. “The best thing is to have two separate countries than to just have one and to have war.''

The vote is part of the 2005 peace accord that ended the nation's 22-year civil war. Observers say the South will probably secede. But in Arlington, the mood wavered from joy that the referendum is imminent to fear that continued violence in Sudan could thwart the outcome.

At the center, below a dentist's office on Massachusetts Avenue, registration opened Monday and will continue through Dec. 22. The process is under strict security, overseen by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission and the International Organization for Migration.

Trained workers wearing yellow vests stop everyone at the door. Visitors sign a sheet and are escorted to a back room, where they show identification proving they are from Southern Sudan and provide a thumbprint.

If they do not have identification, a specialist quizzes them about everything from their dialect to family lineage. If their identities are confirmed, they are given a laminated voter registration card. Then they dip an index finger in purple ink to prevent them from registering twice.

Only South Sudanese age 18 and over are eligible to vote. They can vote in Sudan and foreign countries such as the United States, where census figures show about 42,000 people of Sudanese descent reside.

In the northeastern United States, the only registration center is in Arlington, which is drawing voters from as far away as New York and Pennsylvania. Three busloads from Maine are expected this weekend.

The orderliness is a far cry from the chaos that surrounded many of them about a decade ago, when they fled a war-ravaged nation for refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. Many then came to the United States for the first time, plunked down in Arlington or towns in North Dakota and other places where they struggled to adjust. Before they left, many had lived in mud huts and had never ridden in a car.

About 150 Lost Boys came to Massachusetts, where they shared apartments or lived with families. Now they are adults, with families and jobs as teachers, laborers, medical workers, even Air Force veterans, like Ajou. Some have struggled, while others have graduated from college. Some returned to Sudan to find wives and brought them back to the United States. Many are now US citizens.

Bol Makuei Anjoun, 27, of Arlington, the acting director of the community center, returned to Sudan in 2007 to see his parents for the first time since he left as a boy. He said he is worried that violence there persists.

Martin Ayoal, of Lynn, said he refuses to return until he feels safe. “This referendum is our ticket to freedom,'' said Ayoal, 45, a laborer and translator.

The Sudanese Education Fund, created in 2004, has raised more than $2 million for programs such as college scholarships and the community center in Arlington, which they are struggling to maintain.

“They are a real tight community, and they have families now and they're going for it,'' said the fund director, Susan Winship.

But there is also grave concern about safety.

Yesterday, the International Rescue Committee said its medical team is delivering emergency aid to more than 3,500 people, mostly women and children, who fled to the state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal in Southern Sudan after the Sudanese Army allegedly bombed their villages.

Ajou is from that state, and he has never been back, though he sends money to his mother there. His father died after he sent Ajou away with an uncle, Garang, fearing that Ajou would be killed. His uncle walked three months with Ajou until he was safe in Ethiopia. Then he returned home to fight and died.

Yesterday, Ajou, a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, said he registered to vote in his uncle's memory.

“For me this will be a great gift for him,'' he said. “What you did, you gave your life for it.''