On May 13, 1990, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Akuthi Okoth graduated from St. Augustine College with a degree in economics. At 23, she was like a lot of other young women in America, pursuing her goals through higher education. But there was one key difference: Okoth is not from America—she is an indigenous Anuak from southern Sudan. And, she said, she’s the first Anuak woman ever to earn a college degree in America.
Okoth arrived from Sudan in 1985, with little English language ability.
"Sometimes when you want something really bad, you learn it fast," said Okoth in a phone interview from her home in Crown Point, Indiana.
Okoth had not planned to come to the United States for school. But in 1983, the Anuak found themselves tangled in the civil war between the Muslim majority in northern Sudan and the Christian minority in the south. Okoth said many of the Anuak from her village of Akobo were slaughtered by Muslim soldiers. Okoth, her mother, and seven of her 18 siblings left to stay with relatives in the town of Bor, but had to hide in the bush for three days when violence escalated. After they came out of hiding, they found that both Bor and Akobo had been burnt to the ground.
Two years later, in 1985, Okoth got on a plane for the United States. She landed in Raleigh and stayed with her uncle as she began her education.
As the situation in Sudan deteriorated further, other Anuak followed Okoth to the United States. Many ended up in southern Minnesota, where around 1,200 of the 2,000 Anuak in the United States now live, according to Genocide Watch.
Ten years after she graduated from St. Augustine, Okoth—now married to a Sudanese man and the mother of two children—moved to Minneapolis. It was there that she founded the Anuak Women’s Community (AWC) in 2003.
Though the group is still in its infancy, Okoth said the AWC plans to provide translation services, child care during English language lessons, and counseling for Anuak women. The AWC’s primary mission is to assist the Anuak in their cultural transition to the United States. Teaching Anuak culture will be a secondary concern, Okoth said.
The AWC recently drafted a constitution. The last line reads, "The most important (mission) is … to be good role models for the Anyuak women in Ethiopia and the Sudan."
Yet hope for the Anuak in Ethiopia and the Sudan may be dwindling, Okoth said. On December 13, 2003, Ethiopian soldiers murdered more than 400 Anuak, according to press reports. In the last decade, some 20,000 Anuak have fled Ethiopia as refugees. Anuak land in Ethiopia is rich with gold pits and oil reserves.
Okoth’s two sisters and brother-in-law survived the massacre because they were already detained in prison by the Ethiopian government, Okoth said. Okoth has not seen them since she left Sudan 18 years ago.
Instead, her travels focus on the nine-hour drive from her new home in Crown Point, Indiana (where her husband recently took a job as a dean at Prairie State College), to Minneapolis, where she continues to help get the AWC on its feet.
"Some of [the women] have never been to school," Okoth said. "It’s very, very sad. I see myself in them, so I want to help them out."
Abigail Kardel contributed to this report.