“There would be times when these boys and young men didn’t eat for 4 or 6 days – they would run out of food and when that happened, everything in the camp slowed down,” explains Quinn. “They would call those ‘the black days.’ But Daniel would gather hundreds of them under the trees and he would be entertaining people, keeping their spirits up."
Since Daniel and his best friend Panther Bior had both been selected to go to the U.S., Quinn and Walker began to document their stories.
After shooting for a number of days, they found John Bul Dau. “Or rather he found us,” recalls Quinn. “John had found his name on the posted board for the U.S. move and he came to us because he had observed our cameras and thought we might be part of the American government.”
“He came to appeal on behalf of his friends that were not selected, he adds. “We were immediately taken with his selflessness."
John, who fled the fighting in Sudan at the age of 13, was slightly older and much taller than the other boys, and had become a leader to more than 1200 other young boys who had escaped the slaughter.
