The Book

A Brief Synopsis of They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky

Adapted from the website They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky is a true book about Sudan, and a powerful portrait of war, as seen through the eyes of three children: Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, and Benjamin Ajak, all of whom currently reside in San Diego, California.

The Boys:
In the mid 1980's, troops of the oppressive fundamentalist government in Northern Sudan began attacking the Black Christian and animist villages in the south. As their houses burned, their parents killed, and their sisters taken into slavery, over 27,000 little boys fled into the night. Many no more than five or six years old, barefoot and naked, without food or water, began their epic journey that would take them a thousand miles across Sudan into Ethiopia. They crossed desserts and mountains, dodged enemy fire and wild animals and endured thirst, starvation and disease. Less than half survived.

Five years later they reached Kakuma Refugee Camp in dry desolate northern Kenya where they began to learn English sitting under trees and writing in the sand. For the next nine years, living on a half cup of cornmeal a day, they built nineteen schools and dedicated themselves to education. They became known to the world as the Lost Boys of Sudan.

Their bravery and perseverance through unimaginable injustices and hardships is testimony to the strength of the human spirit. Without parents to guide them, they emerged as polite, kind, and capable young men who, despite the odds, managed to achieve the equivalent of a secondary education in what was for most a third or fourth language, English. With over two million of their countrymen killed in the holocaust that is still going on today, in 2001, with still no peace in sight, the United States recognized their hopeless situation and welcomed 3800 Lost Boys to this country as refugees.

An alternative format of They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky is available for eligible MSU Students who are registered with the MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD).

Please contact RCPD for the alternative format:
MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities
120 Bessey Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824-1033
Phone: 517-353-9642
Email: rcpd@msu.edu
Web site: rcpd.msu.edu