On May 3, 2006, American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) Associate Simon Deng returned to his homeland in Southern Sudan for the first time since he was abducted as a child slave. Simon was part of a commission of activists and leaders in the movement to stop slavery and genocide in Sudan and was accompanied by AASG Executive Director Liora Kasten; Christian Solidarity International’s John Eibner and Gunnar Wiebalck; and radio talk show host and longtime antislavery advocate Joe Madison with his wife Sherry Madison.

The commission’s week-long excursion through villages in Southern Sudan and Darfur had two aims: to deliver essential humanitarian aid and relief and to determine the needs of the Sudanese from the victims themselves. They met with top Sudanese officials — including president of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir — but the direness of the situation was most poignantly illustrated in conversations with thousands of Southern Sudanese and Darfuri refugees. The accounts of their daily struggle to find food and shelter revealed that — despite the recently brokered peace treaty between the Sudanese government (in Khartoum) and a rebel group in Darfur — the suffering of black Sudanese civilians is far from over. Click here to read on.