Daniel Agau

Daniel Agau, 27, was one of 10,000 young men, dubbed the Lost Boys, who arrived in refugee camps in Kenya a decade ago, fleeing fighting in Sudan between government Islamic forces in the north and Christian rebels in the south. Before the young men reached a Kenyan refugee camp - having spent years in camps in Ethiopia - almost half had died.

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 2, 2002

Click here to enter gallery Click a name to read each survivor's story: • Germaine Pitchon • Huynh Hai • Ramon Liceas Frias • Muharema Jerkic • Daniel Agau • Anh Nguyen

NEW PORT RICHEY -- The crackle of gunfire woke 13-year-old Daniel Agau from his sleep next to cousins and brothers. In seconds, his life was chaos.

"When you hear the sound of guns, you run," Agau says. "They come at night and surround the village and you will run for your life. You don't know where your mother or father is."

Fourteen years later, he still doesn't.

Agau lives in a cramped apartment in New Port Richey with two other refugees from Sudan brought to the United States through World Relief.

The apartment, like Agau's life at the moment, has little order. A bike sits on the couch. Weeks after Christmas, a string of holiday lights hangs limply from the wall.

And the phone rings almost constantly. Friends are calling from Kenyan refugee camps, Agau explains. Via Western Union, he has been sending them the little bit he earns as a dishwasher.

Agau was one of the older ones who fled that night from the Islamic government army. He and the others slept in tall trees to escape the clutches of lions. They ate fruit along the road for three months before arriving on foot in refugee camps in Ethiopia.

Young Daniel cried for his family.

"I told one old person I want to go back to the border," Agau recalls. "I told him I want to go back to see my father. The elder told me, 'If you go now, you don't know where you're going. If you go looking for them, you'll find soldiers. So many animals on the way. How can you go?' "

In the Ethiopian refugee camps, lions pounced on sleeping young boys. Their shrieks filled the night air, Agau says.

Other attackers, these with two legs and guns, arrived in 1991. Ethiopian rebels surrounded the camp and started shooting. Agau and thousands of other boys fled again, many drowning while crossing a river.

A lion grabbed one of Agau's friends one day on the path to Kenya. The boys pulled at him to help.

"We cry, and the old man say, 'No way, let go. If we try to help, it will kill more. It will kill you all.' "

Back in southern Sudan, the government army chased the young men again. A bullet pierced Agau's neck, but he kept running.

Once in the refugee camp in Kenya, Agau learned English from elders and aid workers.

Now he takes GED classes and hopes to get a college degree. Some days, the loneliness of life in America gets frustrating.

"Why did you bring me here if you were just going to abandon me?" Agau vents to case worker Mike Salas.

Yet he holds out hope that education might be the path back to his family.

"If I complete college, I can work with World Relief or some other agency and look for them."

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright