Ajah

On August 10, 2009, Ajah, a refugee from South Sudan, was finally on her way to reunite with her son and her mother, from whom she’d been separated for more than ten years.

Many years earlier, when violence broke out in her village in South Sudan, Ajah managed to escape with her mother and son, who was just an infant at the time. The family sought refuge in a camp for displaced people. One morning, when Ajah went to a food distribution center, she was kidnapped by a group of armed men and torn away from her family. Ajah was held captive for many years until she managed to escape and flee to Nairobi, Kenya.

At the time they lost Ajah, her family was forced to flee South Sudan. In 2003, Ajah’s mother and son resettled in the US. Meanwhile, in Nairobi, RefugePoint began supporting Ajah with food, rent, counseling, and medical assistance. However, Ajah remained in an extremely dangerous situation, as her captors continued to search for her. While in Nairobi, Ajah discovered that her mother and son had been resettled in the US, and she desperately wanted to join them.

Just as we’ve done with hundreds of other families, RefugePoint helped reunite Ajah’s family by facilitating her resettlement. Nearly a decade after being torn from her family, Ajah landed in North Dakota and was reunited with her mother and 10-year-old son.

On the night that Ajah saw her son for the first time, she wrote to us and said: “I have been waiting my whole life for this moment. Now my life is complete.”