New Delhi, Aug. 19 -- 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 at 60 and after six 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 n...