Your mother dies of cholera, your infant brother is shot at, and your brother is killed protecting you. You're forced from your home into a revolting refugee camp, where ultimately you must prostitute yourself in order to survive. And in the survival horror title Elika's Escape, you do all this as a seven-year-old little girl.
For those who did not click the video above (and I highly implore you to do so), the sickening description of gameplay for Elika's Escape caused some gamers at a Washington, DC convention to walk out of the room in horror. Mari Malek, however, wishes she had that option as a child.
“Elika's story is true,” Malek told stunned gamers at the convention presentation. The concept of the fictional Elika's Escape was crafted by humanitarian group UNICEF to demonstrate the horror children suffer in the African country of South Sudan. “She is me, and she is so many of the South Sudanese children that are going through this experience at this moment.” Malek herself is a refugee from South Sudan, a country plagued by internal and ethnic conflict since its independence in 2011.
For more information on the crisis in South Sudan, and how you can help or donate, please visit http://www.unicef.org/southsudan.
