Erjok, who was four or five years old at the time, was living in a village that stood between the rebel movement that began in Bor to free southern Sudan and the Khartoum government.

"We fled to my mother's family on the other side of the Nile. The Arabs couldn't cross the river.

"We could hear them and the mortars were landing in the swamp around us but didn't explode."

That flight from his home was the first of many for Erjok. In 1985, his father went off to join the Sudan People's Liberation Army and the family moved to a refugee-populated town on the Sudan-Ethiopia border.

There was a brief trip to Kenya for medical help and after the camp was attacked by government-backed militia, the family returned to south Sudan, now occupied and controlled by rebel forces. There were often air raids, but Erjok said the mountainous terrain made it hard for the militia to take control of the area.

Then in 1996, Erjok, through a UNHCR program, was able to go to school in Arua, Uganda.

After completing the equivalent of his VCE, he found a job with a road construction company and though it paid poorly , a German engineer took Erjok under his wing and showed him how to do basic data entry on a computer.

By this time, a fellow refugee in Australia had encouraged Erjok to apply for resettlement in Australia.

Rather than stand in his way, the German engineer gave Erjok time off when he needed to go to Kampala to complete paperwork.

This was also the first time he heard someone say "Aussie", Erjok said.

Since settling in Australia, Erjok has completed a two-year computer networking course at Swinburne TAFE and about three months ago he moved with his wife and two young boys to Melton.

In the peace of his Melton home he is helping the local Sudanese community find its feet and is building websites for Sudanese community groups in his spare time.

Erjok laughs when asked to compare his life as a child with that of his sons.

"They don't have to think about guns, hunger or any of that stuff."