Boy soldier, refugee, migrant: three lifetimes in one story
By Jacqueline Maley
October 31, 2006My story … Cola Bilkuei hopes that by writing an autobiography he will help other Australians appreciate what refugees have gone through to get here.
Photo: Lisa WiltseCOLA BILKUEI is unsure how old he is. Officially he was born in 1984, but he thinks he is probably closer to 27 or 28. To have an age you need a documented history, and although the former Sudanese boy soldier has an incredible history, it has never been written down.He is part of the huge African diaspora - Sudanese, Kenyans, Sierra Leoneans and Liberians - that now makes up most of Australia's refugee intake. Escaping from war and poverty, they often arrive without a documented identity.Now, with the aid of the arts program at the Blacktown Migrant Resource Centre, Mr Bilkuei is writing his life story, which he hopes to have published as a book."I never had a passport or anything that identified me with a country," he says."If I write my story people might understand where people like me have come from."His story begins in rural Sudan, where he was taken from his home aged about 10 by the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Army."When Cola left his village, he realised the leaving had come so quickly he had forgotten to ask his mother for an extra day to play," said Phillip Ross, the migrant centre's arts officer, who is helping Mr Bilkuei write his biography.He will retrace his lost childhood, including military training in Ethiopia, combat in Sudan and eventual escape from the army. Then came a decade of displacement, living rough in cities and refugee camps in Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where he applied to come to Australia as a refugee.He works in a factory and lives in a share house in Blacktown with members of his extended family, but he has lost his mother, two brothers and two sisters, as well as countless friends."I'm living in a house and I'm eating good, but I have people back home I haven't seen for a long time," he said. "I sometimes feel lonely and I feel like the war has cut me off from my family."Mr Ross hopes that Mr Bilkuei's biography will lift this sense of alienation and give Australians an idea of what refugees have gone through to get here."A lot of Westerners have that assumption that if you're from an existence wrapped in poverty and war, you get used to that, but you never do."When news happens: send photos, videos & tip-offs to 0424 SMS SMH (+61 424 767 764), or email us.
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