Benjamin Ajak, a former “Lost Boy” of Sudan, will speak as part of Olivet College’s Lecture and Symposium Series Wednesday, Oct. 21 at 1:30 p.m. in Mott Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Ajak was 5 years old when his village was attacked by troops fighting in the Sudanese civil war. To escape death or induction into the army, he fled with thousands of other children, including his cousins Benson and Alephonsian Deng, a thousand miles across Africa’s largest country. Only half survived to make it into Ethiopia and become known to the world as the Lost Boys.

When a civil war broke out in Ethiopia, the Lost Boys were forced out of the country. Ajak was captured by the rebel army, jailed and beaten, until five months later he escaped.

In 2001, Ajak and his cousins relocated to the United States from Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp as part of an international refugee relief program. Together, they co-authored the book “They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys From Sudan.”

For more information, call (269) 749-7131.

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