Emmanuel Jal

Emmanuel Jal (born Jal Jok c. 1980) is a South Sudanese musician, former child soldier, and political activist. His autobiography, War Child: A Child Soldier's Story, was published in 2009.

Childhood

Born in a Nuer family in the village of Tonj, Warrap State in the Bahr el Ghazal region of Sudan (now South Sudan), Jal was a young child when the Second Sudanese Civil War broke out. His father joined the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and when he was roughly seven years old, his mother was killed by soldiers loyal to the government. He then decided to join the thousands of children travelling to Ethiopia seeking education and opportunity.

Along the way however, many of the children, Jal included, were recruited by the SPLA and taken to military training camps in the bush in Etwas disguised as a school in front of international aid agencies and UN representatives, but behind closed doors the children were training to fight.

Jal spent several years fighting with the SPLA in Ethiopia, until war broke out there too and the child soldiers were forced back into Sudan by the fighting and joined the SPLA's efforts to fight the government in the town of Juba. "Many kids there were so bitter, they wanted to know what happened to them. And we all wanted revenge."