Yuot A. Alaak's Father of the Lost Boys is the personal account of his father leading him and thousands of boy soldiers like him out of danger during Africa's longest running civil war.
Set during the Second Sudanese Civil War, it follows the Lost Boys of Sudan as they fled, traveling thousands of kilometres to escape a genocidal war through rain forests, savannah and desert to reach safety in a refugee camp in Northern Kenya.
Estimates are over twenty thousand South Sudanese children became soldiers. In one province almost a quarter of primary aged children were recruited, boys and some girls.
The youngest were nine years old. Many of them were orphans or unaccompanied minors sent away to supposed safety, told "the Kalashnikov is your new mother and father".
Yuot A. Alaak tells Kathryn Ryan his incredible story.
Photo: Claire Millar Fremantle Press
