Michelle Gabel

A girl attends a ceremony in Duk Payuel in December 2009. One out of every seven children in southern Sudan dies before his or her fifth birthday, according to United Nations' "Scary Statistics -- Southern Sudan" report.

©2009 Michelle Gable

Lost Boys returned to Sudan

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In December 2009, I traveled to southern Sudan with former Syracuse Post-Standard reporter Maureen Sieh, who won a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship administered by the International Center for Journalists. We spent three weeks following four former Lost Boys, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who returned to their home villages to build clinics, schools and wells.

Villagers greet former “lost boys” as they returned to their village in southern Sudan.

In 1987, John Dau, Gabriel Bol Deng, Daniel Amet and Angelo Kiir were among 27,000 boys sent fleeing across the East African desert when northern government soldiers ravaged their villages during the civil war in southern Sudan. Thousands died of diseases, gunfire, and attacks by wild animals. Dau, Deng, Amet, and Kiir made it to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and eventually found a home in Syracuse in 2001. Everything they have done to build a new life in Syracuse has been devoted to the cause of helping their communities back home.

As adults, these former Lost Boys of Sudan, named after the fictional characters in “Peter Pan,” are bringing hope to their homeland. Here are some photographs from my travels.

— Michelle Gabel, Syracuse, N.Y.  April 2010

Michelle Gabel

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_01sudan.jpg]
A woman walks toward The Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan. Burning cow dung creates a lot of smoke and is used to repel flies and mosquitoes, which carry harmful diseases. Malaria is hyper-endemic in southern Sudan. The Duk Lost Boys Clinic was initiated by former Lost Boy, John Dau, of Syracuse, N.Y. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_02sudan.jpg]
A woman in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, cares for her family's cows. Cows symbolize wealth in southern Sudan. Men use cows to pay dowry for a young woman they want to marry. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_04sudan.jpg]
Martha Aman Mayen lead villagers of Duk Payuel in prayer and songs. Southern Sudan is predominantly Christian and animist. Northern Sudan is Islamic. During Sudan's civil war, the northern government attempted to convert the south to Islam. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_05sudan.jpg]
Mary Atit Thong, 75, holds one end of a stick as her daughter leads her home after visiting The Duk Lost Boys Clinic, a five-minute walk from their home. She came to the clinic in December because she had diarrhea, but she also wanted to restore her vision. When northern Arab soldiers returned to Duk Payuel during the Civil War in 1994, a soldier beat her with the butt of his gun. She lost her vision in 2005. "My eye is always in pain," she said. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_07sudan.jpg]
Alang Majuk Manyang, 16, right, traveled two hours to the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, to give birth to her son, Akim Mathei. Her husband, Mathei Bol Atem, is shown with her, holding their baby. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_08sudan.jpg]
Juliana Cheruiyot, a Kenyan midwife, cut the umbilical cord off Juliana Mayon within minutes after she was born at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in December. A traditional birth attendant is shown in the background. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_09sudan.jpg]
Achol Akim Aleu holds her 2 1/2-year-old son, Akoy Malual, as nurse Paul Aleer tries to find the child's vein to draw blood. Behind Aleu is Samuel Juma Malual, clinical officer at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel. Akoy came with a running nose and cough. He was diagnosed with pneumonia. "Everybody gets respiratory diseases because of the weather and congestion in the village," Malual said. "Sometimes five people sleep in one room on the floor. We try to teach them two people in one room." Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_11sudan.jpg]
Rebecca Aliet dances before receiving her certificate for completing the traditional birth attendant workshop organized in December by the Duk Lost Boys Clinic. Aliet was one of 25 women who learned how to deliver healthy babies. Traditional birth attendants are the mothers and grandmothers who deliver most of the babies in southern Sudan, but many of them are not trained. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_14sudan.jpg]
An elementary school student in Duk Payuel practices English as a classmate rests in the tree above. More than 90 percent of children in southern Sudan attend school under trees. Eighty-five percent of adults in southern Sudan do not know how to read or write. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_15sudan.jpg]
A young boy manages a rice stall in downtown Duk Payuel, where there are no stores or major markets. People usually put their money together and then send someone to a market about 12 hours away to buy lentil, rice, oil, soap and other goods to sell in the village. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_16sudan.jpg]
When southern Sudan officials came to Duk Payuel to encourage people to vote in the upcoming multiparty national election in April 2010, villagers killed a cow in celebration. The officials also encouraged people to stop the interethnic fighting because instability in the area could affect the January 2011 referendum vote for independence from the North. A UN helicopter that carried the officials to Duk Payuel is shown in the background. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_17sudan.jpg]
Three children in Duk Payuel watch a United Nations helicopter take off after southern Sudan officials came to the village to encourage people to vote in April in the first multiparty election in 24 years. They also encouraged people to stop the interethnic fighting because instability in the area could affect the January 2011 referendum vote to separate from the northern government. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_22sudan.jpg]
Saint Josephine Bakita Clinic will focus on women and children said Daniel Amet, a former employee at St. Joseph Hospital and Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., who built the clinic and drilled two water wells in his home village, Malakalel, in southern Sudan. The clinic is shown in the background middle right. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_27sudan.jpg]
Women sing and dance as Gabriel Bol Deng, of Syracuse, visits Ariang, his home village, for the third time since fleeing the war in 1987. He has raised nearly $200,000 for Ariang to build a school and wells. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_29sudan.jpg]
Gabriel Bol Deng greets Awien Koth, a relative, shortly after he arrived in Ariang on a sunny Sunday morning in December. Koth, 48, showed Deng a painful swelling on her left hand. She said she needed medicine. As villagers marched behind Deng, they told him about their needs; medicine, school uniforms and clinic. "Bol must help us,'' they sang in Dinka. Standing next to Deng is Garang Daniel Amet, one of the "lost boys'' of Syracuse. Amet is building the St. Josephine Bakita Clinic in Malakalel. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_30sudan.jpg]
Nay Kiir Akol, a relative, leads Gabriel Bol Deng to the tree where Deng's mother and his placenta are buried. Deng's uncle, Garang Deng Majok, performed a traditional water ceremony asking God's blessing for his nephew's health and spirituality. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_31sudan.jpg]
People gather water from one of the six wells Gabriel Bol Deng, of Syracuse, drilled in his village, Ariang, in southern Sudan. People from nearby villages walk several miles to get water for their families. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_33sudan.jpg]
Ariang school children march and sing in Dinka, "The SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) has tried through the gun to end the war, but the real peace will come from education." Gabriel Bol Deng, a graduate student at LeMoyne College, has raised about $200,000 for Ariang. He decided to build a school when he saw children learning under trees in his village. He also drilled six wells. A crumbling mud hut is shown in the foreground. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_34sudan.jpg]
A young boy runs after the vehicle Gabriel Bol Deng rides in as he visits Ariang in December 2009, his third visit to his home village since he fled the war in 1987. He first went home in 2006 to find his parents. He would later learn that they died of natural causes. Five uncles and two brothers were killed during the 21-year-old civil war. Photo by Michelle Gabel

To view larger photos from the gallery, please enter the FS button.

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A link to the multi-media piece that appeared at the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper website: Lost Boys Come Home.

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Michelle Gabel is an award-winning photojournalist who has worked for The Post-Standard, the daily newspaper in Syracuse, N.Y., since 1993. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today and the Detroit Free Press, among other publications.

She has documented a diverse array of human interest stories in the U.S. and abroad, including following the battle of a breast cancer patient during the year leading up to her death; the effects of environmental pollution caused by IBM in its birthplace of Endicott, N.Y.; the closing of a long-time, family-owned dry cleaning business; and the day-to-day reality of a couple raising 15 adopted children. Her recent international work includes a trip to Ghana, West Africa, to photograph a community’s efforts in furthering girls’ education, the building of a local library, and a Liberian family in a Ghanaian refugee camp preparing to resettle in Central New York. In December 2009, Gabel traveled to southern Sudan to photograph four young Sudanese men, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who are helping to rebuild their homeland.

She has received honors from the National Press Photographers Association, the Associated Press and Gannett newspapers.

Michelle can be contacted at: mgabel@twcny.rr.com

© 2009 Michelle Gable