Sudanese Canadians will be casting their ballots in the week-long referendum to decide if South Sudan will separate from the northern half of Sudan and become an independent country.

“The referendum is actually the livelihood of all of us here,” says Thon Simon Kuany, 27, a “Lost Boy” who is a fourth-year student in the Lassonde Mineral Engineering Program at the University of Toronto. “It’s something that sums up the history of Sudan.”

“I am going to be the first one through the door (of the polling station),” Kuany says with a grin. “Or if not first, definitely in the top 10!”

He hopes Sunday’s referendum will lead to an independent South Sudan in the wake of a decades-long civil war that forced them from their homes, claimed the lives of kinsmen and friends, and left them alone to rebuild their lives in Canada.

The Lost Boys became international poster children for the civil war in Sudan after thousands of orphans turned up in Kenya, naked and malnourished after trekking thousands of kilometres from Ethiopia.

Read the full article on the Toronto Star website.