The Boy Who Wouldn't Die

Book excerpt: The inspiring true story of David Nyuol Vincent, a Sudanese refugee who survived famine, wars and 17 years in refugee camps to build a new life in Australia. David Nyuol Vincent was a little boy when he fled southern Sudan with his father, as war raged in their country. He left behind his distraught mother and sisters, his village and his childhood. For months David and his father walked across southern Sudan, barefoot, desperately searching for safety, food and water. They survived the perilous Sahara Desert crossing into Ethiopia only to be separated. David was taken in and trained as a child soldier, surviving the next 17 years of his life alone in refugee camps. Life was a relentless struggle against starvation, air bombings and people determined to kill him and his people. In 2004 David was offered a humanitarian visa as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan and was resettled to Australia. Traumatised by what he had seen and endured, he went about the slow and painful process of making a new life for himself-a life away from hunger, away from guns, away from death. A life where David is determined to improve the plight of his people both here in Australia and back in South Sudan. Told with frankness and humour, this is the powerful account of a young man's resilience. The story of a boy who refused to die.