Changing China

Is ‘Lost Boy’ Lomong the right choice to carry U.S. flag?

When militiamen swept into their villages on horseback in the early 1990s, shooting, burning and raping as they went, tens of thousands of young Sudanese boys were forced to flee for their lives.

They walked for hundreds of miles, many dying on the way of starvation and illness. Others were eaten by lions. But many survived, ending up in refugee camps in the near-desert plains of northern Kenya.

In 2001, nearly 4,000 of the “Lost Boys” were resettled in the United States. On Friday, one of them will have the honour of carrying the U.S. flag at the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Lopez Lomong, who left his home in the southern Sudan in 1991 as a six-year-old boy, is now a successful middle-distance runner. Chosen by his own team mates for the honour, he says Friday will be “the most exciting day ever in my life“.

Lomong left home and lost contact with his parents at the height of Sudan’s civil war between its mainly Arab north and its largely Christian south. It was a devastating conflict, which left around two million people dead.

That conflict is now over, but the Sudanese government continues to arm tribes to do their dirty work, human rights groups say, spreading death and misery in the western region of Darfur.

China, a major investor in Sudan’s oil industry and supplier of arms, stands accused of not doing enough to press Khartoum to end the crisis in Darfur.