THOSE WE THROW AWAY ARE DIAMON

A stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking lens on the global refugee crisis, from a man who faced the very worst of humanity and survived to advocate for refugees everywhere One night when Mondiant Dogon, a Bagogwe Tutsi born in Congo, was very young, his father's lifelong friend, a Hutu man, came to their home with a machete in his hand and warned the family they were to be killed within hours. Dogon's family fled into the bush, where they began a long and dangerous journey into Rwanda. Since that day when he was just three years old, Dogon has called himself a forever refugee. He and his family made their way to the first of several UN tent cities in which they would spend the next quarter century. But their search for a safe haven had only just begun.Hideous violence stalked them in the camps, where death loomed constantly. Even though Rwanda famously has a refugee for a president in Paul Kagame, refugees in that country face enormous prejudice and acute want. For most of his life, Dogon only had enough to eat three days a week. Food appeared on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. For a time he fled back to Congo in search of the better life that had been lost, but there he was imprisoned and then found work as a child soldier. Against all odds, and through grit and good fortune, he managed to be one of the few Congolese Tutsis to receive an education in Rwanda. Eventually, Dogon came to the US and became an advocate for his people. He is the self-described global ambassador for the Bagogwe Tutsi, who has also lent his voice to the plight of forever refugees everywhere. As Dogon once wrote in a poem, ''those we throw away are diamonds.''