In South Sudan, a child soldier long thought dead comes back
JUBA, South Sudan — She had no body to bury at the funeral, so the grieving mother kneeled in the dirt outside her small hut, recited psalms and simply traced her finger over the uneven earth.
It was December 2015, a year after Nyayan Koang’s boy was abducted by government soldiers at the age of just 14 to fight in South Sudan’s army. Now Koang was told that her James was dead, from a gunshot to his leg.
“We were all crying,” Koang said. “I didn’t believe he was gone.”
It would take almost two years for Koang to discover that she was right — her son was alive.