Retells the story of the children who fled war-torn Sudan and laments the fate of girls left behind. The civil war in Sudan sent thousands of children on a 1,000-mile trek across borders to escape the carnage; while in flight, the children were at risk of being attacked by marauding militias, being eaten by wild animals, or starving to death. The surviving 12,000 children – the “Lost Boys of Sudan” – stayed in a refugee camp in Kenya until about a quarter of them were resettled to the United States under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Less than 100 of the children now living in the U.S. are girls, but an estimated 1,000 Sudanese girls remain in the Kenyan camp, at great risk. Speculation is that the girls were treated differently in the camp and have disappeared or ended up being starved or becoming slaves. The U.S. government and UNHCR are at odds about the treatment of the children. Pressure from women’s rights groups may be too late to rescue the girls: post-September 11 security standards have dramatically reduced the number of refugee admissions into the country.
