Safe Haven: Collins Okeny leaves Sudan and Finds a More Peaceful Home in Yorkton

by Simone Hoedel, published Winter 2004

Collins Okeny is resting with his family in his Yorkton home, relaxed and at ease. Although he now works as a blaster at Leon's Manufacturing Company in Yorkton, he reflects that only a few years ago, he and his family had escaped a harrowing ordeal in their native Sudan.

He and his family have come a long way since leaving Sudan in 1998. A member of the Acholi tribe in the south of that country, he and his family witnessed much violence in the 1990s civil wars in Sudan.

“My kids, like a lot of people, they saw it,” said Okeny. “They don't forget it: they're still having nightmares.”

Arab militias would threaten and kill members of his community, pressuring them to convert to Islam. He and his children have seen the cut up bodies, left as warnings.

He doesn’t want to convert to Islam. Neither was he interested in joining the rebels.

The last straw came when Okeny's father was killed by government forces in Khartoum. When he began making funeral arrangements, security officers came looking for him among his friends and family, to arrest him.

“That's when I said, well, if I stay here, I am going to die,” said Okeny. “I have to go now away from here.”

Okeny fled to a safe place on the Nile River, then asked that his wife and family join him. The family escaped Sudan by a perilous seven day hike through the jungle towards Kenya. Once they were picked up by Kenyan patrol officers, they were considered refugees and handed over to the UN.

In Okeny’s culture, the more children, the more status a person has. Which puts he and his wife high on the status scale with their 8 children. Two are in post-secondary school and the youngest is a toddler, born in Canada. Grandfathers on both sides of the family, he said, have many wives and children, which is the custom in Sudan.

Most people in the village where he lived built thatched roof structures, unless they had enough money for an iron sheet roof.

The Okeny’s last year received their Canadian citizenship. Okeny feels blessed. “I never expected that we were going to be alive,” he explains. “The journey to Kenya, not a lot of people make it.”

Okeny is happy to be in Canada. They have adjusted to the cold weather, and the quieter, safer environment. “Very good. I like Canada, especially Yorkton.”

“Because I've never been in peace,” said Okeny, “I want to enjoy this maybe short time, to enjoy the peace.”