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I support this film.
It's really two films. The first half is their journey across their country, going in multiple directions upon learning that neigboring countries are closing the borders for them, even as they are being hunted by soldiers in each direction. The reasons for the war aren't really hinted at. It was really a land-grab, with the dominating factions of the north seeking to wipe out populations in the south and on the peripheries where there were and are vast oil reserves, but it also had an ethno-religious component.
The audience is as in the dark as the children as to why this hell is raining down on them. One day, their out minding the cattle, and planes and soldiers swoop in and virtually wipe out their village. The oldest boy Theo returns to the village and returns wit his surviving sister Abital. And they set out on their journey with Mamere, Paul, Daniel, and Gabriel and others. Without giving too much away, after many misadventures, under the bold but stumbling leadership of Theo, who has inherited the mantle of chief among his village's surviving children, several in the party finally arrive on their very last legs at a refugee camp, where they are surprised to encounter people who have no color in their skin.
The second half jumps us ahead 13 years. Thirteen long years the children have been in the refugee camp, having grown up but stayed together as a family of circumstance, before finally getting notice that they will be granted asylum in the United States in the mysterious exotic village of Kansas City, where they seek jobs, adjust, hang out with Reese Witherspoon, and fight to keep their makeshift family together.
No small amount of death, and that's tough to witness, but no small amount of human and social significance and triumph and Mark Twain references to go with also.
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