Program focuses on Sudanese refugees

Program focuses on Sudanese refugeesOctober 15, 2002Cynthia J. Moritzcjmoritz@syr.edu

“The Wars of Our Fathers Are Not Ours” is the title of a program on the cultural heritage of Sudanese refugees in New York state to be held Oct. 26 from 1-5 p.m. in the Kilian Room, Room 500 of Syracuse University’s Hall of Languages. The program is sponsored by the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts (PARC), which received a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities to host it.

The event is part of the 2002 State Humanities Month, a celebration sponsored each October by the New York Council for the Humanities. It is made possible through the efforts of PARC research associate Felicia Faye McMahon.

During the program, members of the Sudanese young men’s a cappella choir will sing in four languages: Dinka, DiDinga, Swahili and English. Speakers will include the Rev. Darius Oliha Makuja, on “Religion and Politics”; Andrew Wieu on “Peacekeeping in the Sudan, 1964-2002”; and Dominic Diing and Charles Lino on “The Lost Boys: No Longer Lost, No Longer Boys.”

Syracuse is home to 79 Dinka and DiDinga men, originally from Sudan and commonly known as “The Lost Boys.” Starting in the late 1980s, thousands of Sudanese boys walked to Ethiopia to escape their country’s civil war. There, they lived in campus until the government expelled them in 1991. In 1992, once again threatened by civil war, they walked 600 miles to northwest Kenya, where Kakuma camp was established for them. The Syracuse contingent is part of a group of about 3,000 Sudanese refugees offered refuge in the U.S.