When I was 10 years old, I fled my homeland amid the bomb blasts

Hear the voice of Alek Wek, a daughter of Sudan, who spoke with the weight of memory: “When I was 10 years old, I fled my homeland amid the bomb blasts of civil war in Sudan.” These words are both a confession of pain and a proclamation of survival. They tell of a childhood shattered, not by the ordinary trials of youth, but by the roar of war, the tearing apart of homeland, and the scattering of family. They speak for millions of children who have known the terror of conflict before they have known the fullness of life.

The origin of this quote lies in the long and bloody civil war in Sudan, a conflict that raged for decades, dividing north and south, tearing apart communities, and leaving millions dead or displaced. In the midst of this strife, young Alek Wek was forced to flee, abandoning her home, her land, and her childhood dreams. The bombs that shook the ground also shook the foundation of her life, casting her upon the path of exile. Yet from these ashes she rose, later becoming not only a model celebrated across the world, but also a voice for refugees and the forgotten.

The meaning of her words is profound: war does not simply destroy cities and armies, it destroys the innocence of children. To be ten years old is to be full of wonder, curiosity, and play. Yet for Wek, ten years meant fear, flight, and the loss of everything familiar. Her story teaches us that the true cost of war is not counted only in the dead, but in the generations scarred before they have even grown. It is in the eyes of children who should be dreaming, but instead are running from fire.

Consider the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan, thousands of children who trekked across deserts, many without parents, to escape the killing fields of their homeland. They walked for months, suffering hunger, disease, and the constant threat of violence, yet they endured. Many found new homes in distant lands, carrying with them both the trauma of what they fled and the strength of survival. Like Wek, their lives are testimony: that amid the cruelty of war, the human spirit still clings to hope.

Yet Wek’s words are not only lamentation, but a call to awareness. In her life, she turned her pain into purpose, using her platform to speak for those who cannot. She reminds us that behind every refugee statistic lies a child, a mother, a father—human beings uprooted by forces they did not create. When she says she “fled amid the bomb blasts,” she gives flesh and voice to the faceless millions driven from their homes by the madness of men. Her story is their story, carried into the light.

The lesson here is clear: never turn your heart away from those who flee war. They are not strangers to be feared, but survivors to be honored. They carry with them courage and resilience forged in fire. And we, who live in safer lands, must see in them not a burden but a chance to restore dignity, to practice compassion, to become the refuge they were denied at home.

What, then, must we do? We must bear witness. We must listen to the stories of refugees, not as distant tragedies but as urgent calls to action. We must support the work of peace, the building of schools, the feeding of the hungry, the sheltering of the displaced. And in our daily lives, we must resist the temptation to see war as an abstraction. For every bomb that falls creates not only rubble, but broken childhoods that cry out for healing.

Therefore, let Alek Wek’s words echo as both sorrow and hope. Let us remember that the bombs of civil war in Sudan did not silence her voice, but forged it into a testimony that now calls the world to compassion. And let us vow that when children flee war, they will find in us not indifference, but open arms. For in welcoming the refugee, we restore not only their humanity, but our own.