RENK, South Sudan (AP) — 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 nearly 13 million more, according to U.N. agencies

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