Achut lives alone in a displacement camp. She’s ten.

Despite her young age, Achut has seen more violence and death than most of us would dare to imagine. When the conflict in South Sudan first started, gunmen brutally murdered her father in his home (he was living with his other wife in another village).

“The attackers came in the middle of the night, killed him and burnt the house,” recalls Achut. A few years later, her mother died of natural causes. The only thing she had left was her home, which gunmen forced her and her siblings to flee in the middle of the night.

“Our place was attacked at night. When we were running away, we saw people getting killed. That gave me a lot of nightmares, so I don’t really want to go back to that place.”

Achut, her older brother and younger sister arrived at a camp for displaced people. But her older brother left to join the army and her younger sister was taken to live with their uncle.

“Living alone hurts me so much. I feel lonely. Although there are neighbours around, I am afraid of going to fetch water because of what might happen to me. When I first came here, it was so difficult for me to live without food,” says Achut.

Achut’s story shows how conflict forces young children into adult roles too soon – living alone in a camp, having to feed herself and fetch her own water. Along the way, they are also easy targets for exploitation and trafficking.

Children like Achut, who are left to fend for themselves, are our priority. We regularly distribute food and essential items to the camp where she lives.

“If there were no food distribution, I wouldn’t have anything to eat. I’d have to go to the bush to find something. I have two mosquito nets. I use one for fishing and one for sleeping.”

We’ll do whatever it takes to help the most vulnerable children. But we need your support to help them survive, recover and build a future. This is Childhood Rescue.