He survived civil war. Now he has his sights set on college.
FORT COLLINS, CO - No one knows exactly how old Guy Seguele was when militia gunned down his parents and shot him in the leg.
That’s because no one, including Guy, knows his real birthday.
Those kind of everyday details get lost when a boy watches his parents die then flees into the jungle to stay alive.
“I held them both in my hands,” he said, recounting an unimaginable life that included him hiding in Central African Republic for years as a youth.
He stumbles at times while recounting his former life, partly because the story is painful to tell and partly because he only learned English five years ago.
“At night, we can’t sleep. You try to go to bed, but they come and they want to shoot the gun, kill you.”
Guy Seguele, on surviving after his parents' death
How Guy (pronounced "gee"), who is about 19 years old, came to live in Fort Collins after surviving his country’s civil war is a tale that sounds more like a movie script than real life. It’s a story of courage, resourcefulness, a little bit of luck and the power of a helping hand.
Guy was a small boy when his parents were shot and killed by militia in front of him and his sister at their home in Bocaranga, Central African Republic.
After his parents died, Guy and his sister hid in the jungle and ran from militia, knowing that every day could be the day they joined their parents in death.
“At night, we can’t sleep,” he said. “You try to go to bed, but they come and they want to shoot the gun, kill you.”
Guy and his sister eventually found a home with a woman in a nearby small village. She already had several children, so Guy’s sister moved to a refugee camp in Cameroon. When Guy was a teenager, the family sold what they could to buy him a bus ticket to do the same, but by then his sister had already left for America.
After a year in the refugee camp, Guy was brought to the United States to reunite with his sister. The boy without a birthday was assigned one by the U.S. government — Jan. 1, 1997 — and became a permanent resident.
But that was only the beginning of a new chapter in a new country.
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