A mom in African refugee camp; son thrives in US

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_FEA_REFUGEES_DIVIDED_FAMILY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-07-17-10-00-17

KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMP, Kenya (AP) -- At Morris Michael's graduation, the mother who shepherded him out of a Sudanese war zone and inspired his love of learning was not among the proud parents thronging Columbia University's stately Manhattan campus.

Mama Elizabeth, as her family and neighbors call her, was here, in a dirt-floored compound she shares with 14 relatives, in a United Nations-run refugee camp that sprawls across the barren landscape of northern Kenya. She has not seen 22-year-old Morris, or his older brother, James, since they left eight years ago to attend high school in the United States.

"Tell them, 'Your mama is greeting you and God bless you,'" she tells a visiting reporter.

Morris was 5 when his mother - at that point raising seven children on her own - decided it was time to flee their village, Chukudum, in southern Sudan, as a civil war convulsed the region. Over 22 years, an estimated 2 million people died and another 4 million were displaced.