RENK, South Sudan: As a young man in the mid-1980s, Daud Mahmoud Abdullah left his home in Aweil in South Sudan and headed north. It was a time of war. South Sudan was still part of Sudan and was fighting for independence, in a conflict that would claim about 2 million lives.
He never went back. But now, aged 60 and after 6 months in a Sudanese prison, he is closer to home than he’s been in 40 years. This July, he finally crossed the border back into his native South Sudan, taking a deep breath and reminding himself, “I am alive.”
After everything that has happened to him, it feels like a miracle.
Sudan – once his place of refuge – has been embroiled in a brutal civil war since April 2023 that has killed 40,000 people and displaced nearly 13 million more, according to UN agencies.
Abdullah lived in the town of Wad Madani, capital of Al-Jazirah State, about 135km south of Khartoum. There had been incursions into the area by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary force once known as the Janjaweed who were notorious for mass killings, rapes and other atrocities in Darfur two decades ago. More recently, the RSF have again been accused of by the International Criminal Court of committing war crimes, including the attacks on famine-hit Zamzam and other camps in North Darfur.
In January, the Sudanese Armed Forces began recapturing parts of Al-Jazirah state from the RSF – and making sweeping arrests. Abdullah got caught up in the incursions on his way home from the market: he was picked up by SAF soldiers and accused of cooperating with the RSF.
Abdullah says that he was “beaten, tortured and burned with cigarettes” to make him confess. Although he never made a confession, he was thrown in prison.
Held without charge and tortured in prison
In a report released in March, the top UN human rights body detailed how both the SAF and the RSF have detained tens of thousands of people “without charge, with limited or no contact with their families, in squalid and overcrowded facilities” in “a widespread pattern of arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment.”
Abdullah can attest to this. He remembers inmates dying from starvation, beatings or illnesses like cholera on a daily basis. One morning, he discovered that 28 of his fellow inmates had died in the night. For the next three days the bodies lay inside his cell, and the soldiers refused to remove them. “Even when you shouted to them,” said Abdullah, “they would tell you, ‘if you want to die also, you can die with them.’”
The Associated Press spoke to eight men in total, some of whom were detained in other prisons in Al-Jazirah State and Khartoum. All recounted nightmarish conditions during their incarceration. They described being crammed into cells alongside hundreds of other prisoners.
Cells were so crowded that they were forced to sleep with their knees tucked under their chin. Beatings occurred regularly; one said he lost the use of his right eye as a result.
One man, Michael Deng Dut, 29, said he had been “tortured with electricity more than 18 times.” Simon Tong, 39, said that he was tortured with a knife during an interrogation, and rolled up his sleeve to expose the scars on his arm.
Many of the men said they were given only a handful of food and a small cup of water once a day. “This is the reason many of us passed away,” said Tong, “because of the lack of food and water.”
A place between north and south
In July, 99 South Sudanese prisoners were separated from the other inmates. As the men awaited their fate, one died, reducing their number to 98. On July 28, they were bundled into a bus and driven away, not knowing where they were going.
“They did not tell us they were going to release us,” says Abdullah.
He didn’t realize where he was until they reached the South Sudanese border and were taken to Renk, the country’s northernmost town, by South Sudanese officials. Though still far from home, Abdullah was back in his own country for the first time in 40 years.
The border town of Renk has become a hub for South Sudanese nationals trying to get home. When the Sudanese civil war broke out in 2023, UN agencies and the South Sudanese government established an onward transportation program which has moved more than 250,000 people, according to the UN’s International Office of Migration.
On June 1, 2025, the program was suspended due to global cuts to humanitarian funding. The number of people living in and around a transit center in Renk has since swelled to 12,000, roughly six times its intended capacity. Thousands are living in makeshift shelters made of sticks and cloth.
Reunited but stranded
But for Abdullah, arriving in Renk was a moment of overwhelming joy after months of torture and uncertainty. He was overcome to see his wife, daughter, and younger brother waiting for him. His wife had decided to take his family south after his younger brother had been arrested and released by SAF for the third time.
“When I saw Abdullah, I thanked God,” she said. “We did not expect to see him alive again.”
Abdullah now hopes to return to Aweil, the town where he was born. He still has family in Sudan, and is trying to contact them so that they might join him in Renk.
“If they come back safely, then we plan to go to Aweil,” he said. “All of us, together.”
