Francis Bok - Childhood and Abduction

Childhood and Abduction

Francis Bok was raised in a large Catholic family of cattle herders in the Dinka village of Gurion in Southern Sudan. His father, Bol Buk Dol, managed several herds of cattle, sheep and goats. When Bok was captured at the age of 7 on May 15, 1986, he could not count beyond 10 and knew very little of the outside world.

Bok was captured after his mother, Adut Al Akok, had sent him to the village of Nyamlell to sell eggs and peanuts in the village market with some older siblings and neighbors. This was Bok's first trip to the village without his mother, and it was the first time he was allowed to sell some of the family's goods at the market.

Bok went to the market, where he heard adults say that they had seen smoke coming from nearby villages and had heard gunfire in the distance. People began fleeing the market as Francis saw horsemen with machine guns. The gunmen surrounded the market and shot the men in Nyamlell. The raiders were part of an Islamic militia from the northern part of Sudan that conducted periodic raids on the villages of their Dinka neighbors, who were Christians or animists of Sub-Saharan African descent.