Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 2/15/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Stephania Bednar/Staff Photographer Deng Jongkuch, a senior majoring in health science at San Jose State University, left Sudan in 2001.

Deng Jongkuch, a senior majoring in health science at San Jose State University, saw his family for the first time in 18 years last May.

In 1987, rebel militia killed thousands of men, women and children and burned villages as civil war broke out in Sudan. Jongkuch said he and thousands of others were forced out of their village in southern Sudan and he was not given a chance to say goodbye to his parents, two sisters and two brothers.

Jongkuch began an unbelievable journey that would eventually bring him to SJSU where he is taking four classes and expected to graduate in December 2007.
Forced from his village in Sudan at age six or seven, an age Jongkuch estimates because he has no record of his exact date of birth, a group of nearly 4,000 Sudanese refugees started a grueling three-week trek toward Ethiopia, where he would live for the next four years.

"I was glad we made it," Jongkuch said. "Fortunately the people in Ethiopia were friendly and we were able to stay for a while."

He said that changed in 1991 when the Ethiopian government was taken over by Ethiopian rebels.

"Once Ethiopian rebels took over the Ethiopian government it became even worse than it was before," Jongkuch said. "You were always looking over your back, but when the government was overtaken by rebels it became really dangerous. The Ethiopian government became friendly with Sudan rebels and we knew we wouldn't survive so we had to move."

In late 1991, Jongkuch said he was one of nearly 5,000 people that began a barefoot, yearlong walk from his village in Ethiopia to Kenya.

"It was not easy," Jongkuch said. "It was a lot of pain, a lot of frustration. I saw so many people commit suicide because they did not want to go on. I would not eat for days. There was no water. We would eat anything we could; it was just a matter of surviving. If we were lucky, the Red Cross would drop food for us but the danger of militia rebels made it almost impossible for them to do so."

Jongkuch said that in addition to dodging gunfire from rebels, alligators and lions were killing his people and the sight of vultures eating dead human carcasses was common.

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