Iowans featured in documentary on Sudan

The documentary “Lost Boys of Sudan” will be shown in Des Moines tonight, to be followed by a panel discussion featuring several of central Iowa’s own “lost boys.” The film details the lives of two orphaned young men who were among thousands of young people who fled a brutal African civil war and endured many hardships before arriving in the U.S. years later. David Agot is among the 40-some Sudanese who were settled in central Iowa. Agot says he doesn’t know where his family is as he left them in 1983 when the war broke out. He and many others set out on foot, fleeing the violence and encountering more bloodshed, hunger and numerous other perils. Agot spent several years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya before getting the opportunity to come to America in 2001. Now 23, Agot works as a shelf stocker at a Des Moines WalMart and is attending a community college. He says the status of his family and friends who remained behind in Sudan is unknown. Some of them are dead, he says, and he can’t find out about his parents, though he has reached a brother who is still in Sudan. While memories of the atrocities in Africa sadden him, Agot says he’s glad to be in the U-S-A and to be alive and free. For more information about the movie, surf to “www.lostboysfilm.com”. It’s playing at the Fleur Cinemas in Des Moines.