Jacob’s story

In my hometown in Southern Sudan, there was fighting everywhere. Though I was only 9, I always dreamed of running away to a place where there was no war, where I could go to school again. To escape the war, a lot of people in my village were leaving, including a woman next door.

One day I left, too, without telling anyone. Not even my father.

There were so many people walking on the road. I had nothing. No clothes, no food. The first day I did not eat. I just ran. The first night I remembered the wild animals I had seen along the road. So I climbed up a tree to sleep.

The next day I found the woman who had lived next door. She agreed to take me with her. Soon we came to a place that had mines. Someone was blown up and everyone started running and there was blood everywhere. We held hands tightly and ran together across the field.

Soon we reached a river. On the other side, we found more people, all of them hungry. We kept walking and new people joined them in the group. We walked through empty villages. We saw villages where there was nobody, not even a cat. We had no food and people started eating leaves.

After ten days, people in our group began to die. One night, an old man sat in the road and said he could not walk any more. He died an hour later. We crossed another river and planes dropped bombs on us. I was very tired and thought we would never find the camp. But the woman told me, "We are close. After we have crossed the border into Ethiopia we won’t have any more problems."

Three hours later we reached a refugee camp. There are many people here from Sudan who are just like me. This is the place I dreamed of. Now I go to school again. In the camp, there is food and medicine. And the sound of planes no longer frighten me because I know they are carrying food, not bombs.

But when I hear the planes I remember my father and brothers in my village and I am sad. I think the day I ran away, they forgot I loved them. I would like to go home.

Adapted from "Refugee Children," published by UNHCR