Finding home again: A South Sudanese returnee family starts anew in Aweil East

In Aweil East County of Northern Bahr El Ghazal, hope is slowly returning to families displaced by conflict. Among them is Deng Nguac Kuot, a soft-spoken father determined to rebuild the life that war tried to take from him.

For Deng, a 25-year-old South Sudanese, the road home was long—both in distance and in years. Eleven years ago, he left Aweil East as a hopeful 15-year-old boy, believing that in Khartoum he could pursue an education and create a better future. But life had other plans. He grew up, got married to Achit, and together they raised three young children amid the growing instability in Sudan.

When violence flared in Khartoum earlier this year, the city he once dreamed of became a place of fear. “We would hear gunfire. People were being killed in revenge attacks,” Deng recalls quietly. “I knew we had to leave.” 

Carrying only what they could, Deng and his family joined thousands of others on the rough journey back to South Sudan, a journey filled with uncertainty but also with the fragile hope of safety.

Today, in their modest home in Mangar Angui Payam in Aweil East, Deng and Achit are re-rooting their family as they start anew. 

Deng’s family is among the 6,000 households — returnees, internally displaced persons, and other vulnerable families — who received multi-purpose cash assistance through a project funded by the German Humanitarian Assistance/German Federal Foreign Office and implemented by World Vision. Beyond the immediate relief, the initiative offers lifesaving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), health, and nutrition services, along with strong child and adult safeguarding measures. Through these emergency cash transfers, families like Deng’s are not only meeting their urgent needs but also finding the means to rebuild their lives with dignity, resilience, and renewed hope.

“When we received the cash, it gave us a new beginning,” Deng says, smiling. “We bought food, a plastic sheet (to temporarily protect their small tukul—traditional hut—from rain), groundnut and vegetable seeds. The money also helped us get treatment when my two kids got malaria and pneumonia.” 

I started planning for our future again. I want to focus on my children. My children will soon be able to go back to school. I pray that they’ll be able to finish. I want my family to stay here in South Sudan.

After years of displacement, Deng’s story is one of quiet resilience — a testament to how even in the aftermath of conflict, hope can take root again at home.

Story and photos by Diwa Aquino-Gacosta/World Vision South Sudan