Watch Lost Boy Home

Zachariah Char, a Sudanese "Lost Boy" featured in the New York Times, returns to South Sudan and his home village of Duk Padiet to search for his mother and father - 24 years after fleeing the country during a civil war. Rev. Zachariah Char left his home village in Sudan in 1987 after the Islamic government declared that all males in Christian South Sudan would be killed. Approximately 27,000 boys and young men fled the Sudan and settled in refugee camps in Ethiopia, where they remained for four years. In 1991, deteriorating conditions forced many to travel to Kenya, where they were relocated to Kakuma, a U.N. refugee camp. Tragically, only 12,000 boys and young men survived this extraordinarily arduous journey. In 2001, the U.S. and other nations granted visas to those in the Kakuma camp. In the West they became known as the "Lost Boys." Nearly 4,000 settled in the U.S., including Zachariah.