A BRAYBROOK College student faced violent soldiers, rapists and gun-wielding brigands while escaping war-torn Sudan.
And the 19-year-old won first prize in the annual United Nations Refugee Agency writing competition with her story of survival.
Betty Majak said writing about her traumatic experience was cathartic.
“When I wrote this story, I was releasing my pain through my heart.
“I had been reliving my pain every day,” she said
Ms Majak’s mother named her “Atong”, meaning ‘born in the war’, and it was the terrors of war which kept mother and daughter apart for more than 12 years.
Ms Majak fled Sudan with her aunt, when the village in which they lived came under sudden attack.
She was a mere two years old.
Ms Majak said the confusion of the attack resulted in members of her family running in separate directions to escape the village, and she lost contact with everyone but her aunt.
The two crossed Sudan into northern Ethiopia, where they stayed for two years.
When fighting broke out in that region, they attempted to cross the Nile to enter Kenya.
“My aunt was killed when we were crossing,” Ms Majak said.
“There were some robbers who were taking things by force. They were shooting people; they were raping people.
They shot her. She was holding my hand and from there she let me go.
“She was screaming and there was another lady who was walking with us and she grabbed my hand and said let’s go!
“I never saw my aunt again. I think the water took her.”
Ms Majak lived for six months in a temporary Kenyan refugee camp on the border, with children whose parents were dead or missing.
UN soldiers fed the refugees by air-dropping packs of food which were “grabbed” by people in the camp.
She walked for three months from the border to a permanent refugee camp – a camp for about 6000 – in which she stayed for 11 years from 1992.
UN workers there helped Ms Majak to contact her sister and brother, who fled to a camp in Uganda.
The two siblings were then brought to Kenya to stay with Ms Majak.
“It was emotional,” she said. “At first I was afraid. I thought maybe it’s not my sister.
“Then I saw some resemblance with them. I ran and I was crying, and they were crying too because they couldn’t believe they had a sister they thought was already dead, because it was a long journey.”
The three siblings were sponsored to go to Australia in 2003.
A fellow refugee, who knew the children’s father, made arrangements for the siblings after he had arrived in Australia, at Ms Majak’s request.
His only condition was that the $3000 in immigration fees was paid back, which Ms Majak promised to do.
She honoured her promise by paying him $30 every fortnight for two years from her Centrelink money.
The UN found their mother in 2005 and the family was reunited in Australia.
And Ms Majak found she had another two sisters, born after she lost contact with the family.
She doesn’t know what has become of her father. The last she heard, he was imprisoned in Sudan and had lost his right eye through torture.
Ms Majak completes Year 12 this year and hopes to study nursing at university and go into a modelling career, which she is already working towards.
Her 21-year-old sister is studying business management at RMIT, and her brother aged 26 is studying engineering at Melbourne University.
Ms Majak’s sponsorship forms incorrectly listed her name as Anthieng, which is how she was referred to by the writing competition judges.
The competition is run to raise awareness of refugees, and this year attracted 600 entrants from across Australia.
