One of the Lost Boys of Sudan & Human Rights Activist: John Dau

John Dau, also known as Dhieu-Deng Leek, is one of the Lost Boys of
Sudan who was featured in the 2006 award-winning documentary God
Grew Tired of Us. Today, he is a father himself and a human rights
activist for the people of South Sudan. In 2007, he founded the
John Dau Foundation which aims to transform healthcare in South
Sudan. Dau was born into the Dinka tribe in war-torn Sudan. In
1987, his village of Duk Payuel in Duk County, Jonglei was attacked
by government troops involved in the Second Sudanese Civil War
between the Muslim-controlled government in northern Sudan and the
non-Muslims in Southern Sudan. The violence scattered his family,
and Dau was forced to travel on foot for three months until
reaching the relative safety of Ethiopia. Dau stayed in a refugee
camp in Ethiopia for four years, but when civil war broke out in
the region, he was once again forced to flee. As one of thousands
of “Lost Boys of Sudan,” Dau wandered hundreds of miles and faced
disease, starvation, animal attacks and violence, until arriving in
Kenya. While living in the Kenyan Kakuma refugee camp, he attended
school for the first time. In 2001, he was one of 3,800 young
Sudanese refugees resettled in the United States.

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