Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa
Gai Nyok: From Sudan to American Diplomacy
One of Sudan's 'Lost Boys,' he walked to Ethiopia as a child and became a U.S. diplomat.
- Fled
- Sudan
- Status
- Refugee, granted asylum
- Arrived in the U.S.
- 2001
- Service
- Pickering Fellow; Foreign Service Officer (sworn in 2015), first posted to Caracas
- Region
- Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa
Gai Nyok fled his village in what is now South Sudan as a small child and walked to refugee camps in Ethiopia. He later spent about nine years in a camp in Kenya. He was resettled in 2001, at fifteen, with a foster family in Richmond, Virginia.
He won a Pickering Fellowship, interned at the Department of State and the U.S. Mission in Geneva, and was sworn in as a Foreign Service Officer in October 2015. His first post was Caracas.
Read the history behind this story on the Sudan and South Sudan page, or browse all the diplomats.