Lost Boys Of South Sudan

PALOTAKA; SOUTH SUDAN - 1992 : An orphan boy with a Christian cross fashioned from a bone that he wears around his neck at an abandoned mission near Palotaka, South Sudan. Two hundred kilometres west of the border with Kenya 3000 Christian children sought refuge from the needless civil war waged over 37 years between the fundamentalist Muslims of Khartoum (the capital of Sudan) and the Christian minority in the south of the country. For five years more than 100,000 children between the ages of 5 and 15 fled the combat zones on foot, some walking more than 500 kilometres. The refuge; an abandoned Catholic mission, was without resources of any kind, sanitary or otherwise. Daily they would scrape the earth and the adjoining forest for roots and whatever animals they could catch for nourishment. Despite the hardships they faced the 17 accompanying adults gave them the courage to find provisions and continue rudimentary education and sport activities. Copyright © Derek Hudson/Getty Images