Lost Boys Of Sudan Now Being Called 'Found Men'

DENVER (CBS4) - Across America people who came to this country from southern Sudan are going to the polls. They're helping decide if it will split into a separate nation after years of war and suffering. The vote is a chance for the refugees known as the "Lost Boys" to find a way home.

It's a time for jubilation after so many years of suffering. Daniel Majok Gai is one of the so-called Lost Boys, who in 1987 fled for his life.

"The gunmen would just drive down there and do what they could do, and so one evening and they burned down my village," Gai said.

Years of war followed and Gai spent 14 years in refugee camps before coming to Denver. Now he hopes to return and help his people start anew.

"The referendum will bring a freedom to the southerners to rule themselves," Gai said.

Since leaving Sudan he has visited the land he fled. Tears flowed as he was reunited with family members through the help of Project Education Sudan, which started in Denver.

"It was very emotional because they went home," Carol Francis-Rinehart with Project Education Sudan said.

The Colorado-based organization has been building schools in southern Sudan -- a land where boys were routinely killed, the women and girls turn into slaves.

The Lost Boys are now being called the "Found Men."

The referendum for independence is expected to pass, but there are fears about how northern Sudan will respond to the break.

Link: Project Education Sudan