David Ezekia: The Yambio Boy Who Survived South Sudan’s War to Become One of Kenya’s Rising Entrepreneurs

David Ezekia //Photo courtesy 

David Ezekia Sebit’s childhood was not filled with bedtime stories or playground games. Instead, it was shaped by the crack of gunfire, the smell of burning villages and the hunger that gnawed at his stomach.

Born in the early 90s, during the brutal Second Sudanese Civil War, he grew up knowing that survival was never guaranteed.

In Yambio, his home village in South Sudan, school was not a brightly lit classroom with desks and blackboards. Children sat on the bare earth, scratching letters into the dust with their fingers because books and pens were a luxury. Teachers came and went, often fleeing the war before lessons were complete. But war does not reward determination, it tests it.

By the early 2000s, his family made the painful decision to send him to Uganda, hoping he would find a better future. If South Sudan had been tough, Uganda was unforgiving. In a foreign country with no financial support, survival meant sacrifice. He often went days without food, sometimes eating raw mangoes just to stay alive.

“There were days I slept on an empty stomach, wondering if I would make it to the next day,” David recalls. “I knew education was my only way out, but getting there was a daily battle.”

School fees were a constant struggle. While other children played after class, David was at the construction sites, lifting bricks and mixing cement to earn just enough to stay in school.

At one point, he went two years without speaking to his parents, unsure if they were even alive. But he refused to let hardship define him. His resilience paid off when he earned a bursary for high school.

Years later, he found himself in Kenya—alone, with no relatives or safety net. But this time, help came in the form of kind strangers. Bishop Timothy Okelo of Chrisco Donholm Fellowship and his wife pastor Monica took him in, treating him like a son. Others, like Sospeter Opondo Aming’a, a pastor at Chrisco Donholm Fellowship and a seasoned lawyer who is the Co – founder and partner at Soklaw firm and Boniface Omondi, became his mentors and friends. The church community embraced him, making Kenya feel like home.

Faith became his foundation. As a church elder, he has been able to stay in the balance between his spiritual commitments and his growing interest in entrepreneurship.

David founded Dagric Limited, an agricultural company, with little more than vision and determination. Legal challenges were handled by his Soklaw firm where Sospeper is a partner, but other obstacles were unavoidable.

Without a vehicle for deliveries, he often walked long distances carrying goods but far beyond the logistics struggles, David had challenges communicating with his pioneer customers due to language barrier as most of his customers communicated in Kiswahili. But he refused to give up.

“I started with nothing, just a dream and the belief that hard work would pay off,” he says, adding that there were days he walked for miles just to make a single delivery, but he kept going because he knew he was building something bigger than himself.”

As the CEO of a legally registered company in Kenya, David found himself in rooms with people who spoke of millions and billions while he sometimes had only a few hundred shillings to his name. But he knew something they didn’t, he had built himself from nothing before, and he could do it again.

But David’s ambitions stretch far beyond business. His childhood fascination with aviation never faded. As a little boy, he would watch airplanes fly overhead, dreaming of one day sitting in a cockpit.

With no financial support, however, that dream had to wait. Instead, he pursued a degree in Logistics and Procurement from the South Sudan Christian University of Science and Technology.

It wasn’t until 2018, when he joined Air Tec Global Aviation as a crew driver and assistant base manager in Juba, that his dream of working in aviation resurfaced. Despite having no formal training in the field, he gained hands-on experience, determined to find his way into the industry. In 2023, he finally took a major step, completing his Flight Dispatch training at Capital Connect Aviation School in Wilson Airport, Nairobi.

“Aviation has always been my passion,” he says. “Even when I had nothing, I knew one day I would work in this field. And I’m not stopping here—my dream is to become a captain.”

For David, success is not just about personal achievement, it’s about giving back. Through Dagric Limited, he aims to empower youth and women while promoting African agricultural products on the global market. His vision is to create opportunities for others, just as he was given opportunities in his darkest times.

“I want young people to see my story and know that they don’t need millions to start,” David says. “All they need is vision, hard work, and faith.”

Today, Dagric Limited trades in dried hibiscus flowers, organic honey, ginger, chicken, eggs, and more. But for David Ezekia Sebit, the journey is far from over. Whether in business or aviation, his life is proof that even in the darkest times, resilience, faith and hard work can light the way forward.