South Sudan is an African country that produces favorite mod models

Having carried a low but chic outfit, a flowing braid and a lavish, makeup, free face, AROP AKOL looks like your typical model.

It is immersed in the sofa in the offices of its UK agency, the first management model and in detail a career that has seen her walks for luxury brands in London and Paris.

“I have watched modeling on the Internet since childhood at the age of 11,” says BBC Akol, which is now in the early twenties.

Over the last three years, it has been around the world during the modeling, even dividing on the runway with Naomi Campbell on a white show.

A trip to work can become lonely, but Acal constantly enters the model from the country of birth – a magnificent but restless south Sudan.

“People from South Sudan became very famous for their beauty,” says Akol, who has high cheekbones, rich, dark skin and stands in 5 feet in 10 inches.

Spend through a fashion journal or scanned footage at the runway, and you will see Akol – models that were born and grown in South Sudan, or those from a significant country diaspora, are everywhere.

They range from avanarah like Akol, to supermodels such as Anok Yai, Adut Akech and Alek Wek.

Following the intelligence at London Parking in 1995, Wek was one of the first South Sudan models to find global success. Since then, it has appeared on numerous Vogue covers and has modeling like Dior and Louis Vuitton.

And the popularity of South Sudan models does not show signs of decrease – the leading industry platforms Models.com is an annual list of the best “future stars” of modeling, and in the last choice each five models has a southern Sudan.

Elsewhere Vogue showed four models of South Sudan In his article on “11 young models established by the podium storms in 2025”.

“The expectation that there should be a model is most of the South Sudan models,” says Dunn Dan, who runs the South Sudan fashion in the Juba country, together with the ex -Model.

“They have the perfect dark skin. They have melanin. They have height.”

Lucia Yanosova, Casting Agent in FIRST MODEL, tells the BBC: “Of course, they are beautiful … beautiful skin, height.”

However, she says she is definitely not sure why fashion brands are looking for South Sudan models over other nationalities.

“I am not able to tell you because there are many girls that are also beautiful, and they are from Mozambique, Nigeria, or in different countries, right?” Mrs. Janosov adds.

Akur Goy, a South Sudan model that worked with designers such as Givenchy and Armani has theory.

She believes that the models of South Sudan are in demand not only for their physical beauty, but also for their “sustainability”.

Goy was born in Jube, but as a child she moved to a neighboring Uganda, like Acol and hundreds of thousands of other southern Sudan.

Many escaped during the years after 2011, when South Sudan became independent of Sudan.

There were high hopes for the newest nation in the world, but only two years later the civil war broke out, during which 400,000 people were killed and killed and killed and 2.5 million escaped houses for places such as Uganda.

Although the civil war ended five years later, further waves of violence, natural disasters and poverty mean that people continue to leave.

Recently, the fight between government and opposition forces has increased – sparkle Afraid that the country will return to the civil war.

After leaving the war of South Sudan for Uganda, the “biggest dream” was the model.

Fantasy became a reality only last year when it was considered by agents through Facebook. For her first work, she went to the Italian fashion giant Roberto Kavali.

“I was very excited and ready for my first season … I was very nervous and frightened, but I said to myself,” I can do it, “because it was a dream,” Goy says, talking to BBC from Milan, flying to work at the last moment.

But some South Sudan models had more violent journeys.

Investigation of the British newspaper Term It turned out that two refugees living in a camp in Kenya were taken to Europe to say that they were too unsaved to appear on the runway.

After the job modeling, several others reported that they borrowed thousands of euros – because some contracts show that visas and flights should be paid, usually when models start making money.

Akol says she faced a similar question. When it was considered in 2019, the agency in question asked her to unravel numerous fees – the fees she now knows, the agencies do not usually require.

“I was asked for the money for registration, the money for it. I couldn’t manage it all. I fight my family fighting, so I can’t manage it all,” she says.

Three years later, living in Uganda, she was eventually considered by a more authoritative agency.

Dan, which helps minors south -Sudanese models to produce portfolios, says the BBC that some complain about paying for work in clothes rather than money.

Many models also follow from a different problem – the perception of their family about the choice of careers.

“They didn’t want it, and they don’t want it,” says Akol, who now lives in London, about their relatives.

“But we (models) managed to come and say,” We are (a) a young country. We need to go there and meet people. We need to do things that make everyone else. “

Dan says that those who live in urban areas have become more open, but some South Sudanese similar models with prostitution.

Parents call into question the whole concept – I wonder why their daughters will “go to people,” he says.

Dan recalls the young woman he assisted, who was going to fly to his first international work. Unlucky that she would model, the woman’s family followed her to the airport and prevented her from going on the plane.

But, says Dan, the woman’s relatives have eventually arrived, and she has been simulated for the highest brand of linen since then.

“This girl is actually a breadwinner of the family. She leads all her siblings to school, and no one else talks about it as a bad thing,” he says.

He is “proud” when he saw this model – and others from South Sudan – on the world stage, and although the cycle industry through trends, Dan does not believe that the models of South Sudan go out of fashion.

Goy agrees, saying that there is a “increase in demand for diversity” in fashion.

Akol also believes that South Sudan remains here, saying: “Alec Age did it before I was born, and she is still doing it now.

“South Sudanese models will go a long way.”