olympics ROSE NATHIKE LOKONYEN, 23, BORN IN SOUTH SUDAN, 800 METRES


“WE COULD HAVE DIED.”


South Sudan in 2008 but decided to leave her and her siblings in Kakuma. It was there that she found how much she loved to run, but had never competed and had no idea how fast she was. One of her teachers at the camp suggested she enter a 10-kilometre race. “I had not been training. It was the first time for me to run, and I came number two,” she says. “I was very surprised!” Rose started training with the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation in Nairobi, an organization that uses athletics as part of its peace-building initiatives.


© UNHCR/Benjamin Loyseau


Rose Nathike Lokonyen was used to running barefoot through the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya where she and her family have lived for several years. She was 10 when they fled from South Sudan, part of a mass exodus that has been underway for decades, as people sought a safe haven from the conflict.


“If my parents had not brought us here to Kenya we could have died,” she says. Rose’s parents returned to


Her first priority is to help her parents and her siblings, and then other refugees. “I will be representing my people there at Rio, and maybe if I succeed I can come back and conduct a race that can promote peace, and bring people together.”


Rose, who was honoured to lead the Refugee Olympic Team into the stadium at the opening ceremony, was pleased with her time of 2:16.64 hours. “I am very happy with the result of the race as I was competing until the finish line among so many champions.”


ANJELINA NADAI LOHALITH, 21, BORN IN SOUTH SUDAN, 1,500 METRES


seen her parents since she was six years old; she has heard they are alive, although, “last year the hunger was very tough.”


“LAST YEAR THE HUNGER WAS VERY TOUGH.”


© UNHCR/Benjamin Loyseau


As a little girl in South Sudan, Anjelina Nadai Lohalith first began her running career by trying to finish her chores faster. The cows she had to milk were an hour away if she walked, but only 30 minutes, if she ran there. But soon she was running for her life, forced to abandon her home after everything in her village was destroyed. She hasn’t


14 / UNHCR


Growing up in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, her athletic talent was recognized—she regularly won competitions at school. But it wasn’t until professional coaches came to scout athletes for the Olympic refugee team that she realized how good she was. After Rio she dreams of winning major international races that award significant prize money. “If you have money,


then your


life can change and you will not remain the way you have been,” Anjelina says. The first thing she would do with a big win? “Build my father a better house.”


Anjelina finished 14th in her heat, with a time of 4:47.38. “It has been really an amazing experience. It is my first time in Rio, competing with great athletes. It is just a beginning of my career in sports and I really wish to be able to do better,” she says.


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