Original subtitles

It's impossible for me to enter Sudan normally.

I had to get in covertly.

This is the moment of no return.

We were being truly hunted.

If I fall into their hands, anything could happen, including my execution.

There is a bounty on your head.

This is bad.

This is really bad.

I'm now in Darfur, Western Sudan, a state that for the last year has been

off from the international community.

Back in 2004, I was a young, hungry journalist, filmmaker in my 20s.

I came across this name, which was Darfur, the Desert War in Sudan, in the

middle of Africa. The images I was capturing, they just ricocheted across

news headlines.

U .S. Secretary of State Conan Powell said that genocide... Arab militia

backed by the Sudanese government have been attacking the indigenous

Rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army, or SLA, are leading the resistance against

government -backed militias.

Now, 12 years later, I'm back. The world had forgotten Darfur, and I'm heading

again to a desert war that nobody's covering.

I've been hearing many allegations that the Sudanese government has been using

chemical weapons against its own civilians in these mountains called

These mountains are deep inside Darfur, very hard to get to.

My mission was to see if these allegations were true.

It would be huge news.

It's impossible for me to enter Sudan normally.

I had to get in covertly.

That's why I made my way as a tourist from Chad up to the border.

I know the dangers and what's at stake here.

But really, if I'm not doing it, there won't be another journalist here.

So my mind clicks to Giovanna, my partner and my producer, and my son,

I carry a small photograph of my son.

As I near the border, I put it into my shoe, because I know that's one thing

that I will always keep.

I'm thinking really about what's to come.

One of the biggest threats...

When I get into Darfur, it's going to be the government militias.

They're known to kill at random, massacre civilians.

And if you fall into their hands, it's really anything is possible.

So I pull into Abeshe after 15 hours on this bus.

Abeshe is this large, fairly wild, rugged town 100km from the border.

Finally, I'm a huge step closer to Darfur.

But I know I'm the only white guy there. I'm sticking out like a sore thumb.

Sydney's bi -network on this border will start to take an interest in me, so I'm

trying to keep a low profile.

The first thing I do is check in with Giovanna in London.

Daud. It's Daud Harry. It's my Darfur brother, the man I've come to meet. We

embrace each other and I get a waft of his fantastic cheap cologne.

Is this your idea of Doki? Looking like a sultan, basically.

But it's great to see him.

Where did this come from?

Do you like my robe?

No, not at all.

Daud I first met back in 2004, the first time when I was in Darfur. He was my

fixer, my translator, my guide.

Daoud is a character, but he's a man who's also driven to help his people.

Yeah, really?

And a very, very brave man.

Then Daoud and I really get down to business.

I've got this rucksack and I had this compartment perfect for hiding the

which was where I was going to store all the material that I was planning on

filming. What's that?

That's a tracking device.

It pings a signal back to London so Giovanna knows where we are.

If we get into trouble...

I press this emergency button and it sounds the alarm.

We start going through the plan.

We make the crossing from Chad into Darfur here.

Then we meet our friend, the SLA rebels here. We're going to meet with the SLA

rebels. That's the Sudanese Liberation Army that have been fighting the

government of Sudan for well over a decade now.

They take us to here.

And they're going to be our escort across this vast expanse, 600, 700

towards the mountains, where the allegations of chemical weapons had

But we

know that

as long as we stay invisible, as long as we don't wake the dragon, the dragon

being the Sudanese government militia,

We have a very, very good chance of success.

So the next morning, Daud's got a local driver. We're now driving north, and

we're arriving to the town of Pina.

This is an infamous border town with contraband, illegal trade, rebels.

For a white man to enter this town will immediately provoke the Sudanese police

to be on alert.

Daoud now changes his character. He just tells him, forward, look forward,

drive, drive, drive.

Now we're going to go. We're going to go.

Get up.

We're going to go.

So we've arrived in a safe house of someone sympathetic to the rebels.

Daud is now making phone calls. He's making contacts with the man who's going

take us across.

It's now coming up to midnight.

This is a courier, fast car courier, like a supercharged 4x4. This man takes

anything across the border, contraband, weapons, goods.

But tonight he's taking Daoud and me.

This is the moment of no return.

We're about to cross the border.

We're just silent.

No words are needed.

Like a maze.

Left, right, left, right, but he's moving fast.

And then we're out into the desert.

We're now just going by moonlight.

That 10, 15 minutes as we race across the border.

None of us say anything.

And I turn on the sat phone, and up it flashes.

Sudan.

We're in.

We drive fast, and we're heading straight east, deep, deep into Darfur.

Suddenly, the courier pulls off the road, engine off.

He puts his fingers to his lips.

I can see a speck of light behind us.

What is it? It's slowly morphed into two small specks and they're headlights.

They're clearly following our tracks.

It could be Sudanese government militias.

And if we're caught here, there's little chance of escape.

If I fall into their hands, anything could happen.

Including my execution.

There's just this minute of tension.

Do they know we're here?

We just wait.

Oh, our friend.

It's the SLA rebels. It's like... Our friend.

We've made the rendezvous.

Get back.

That's it. I'm with the SLA. The Sudanese Liberation Army rebels.

Peace be upon you. We've all got the rebel headscarves and gear and yeah,

they're all grinning.

It's fairly efficient. We need to make this handover. No one really wants to

hang around.

I've got my camera and I start filming.

That's why I'm here. This is the job.

These men desperately want the world to see the atrocities in Jabal Mara. They

know where to put their forgotten war back on the map.

What did he say?

He said you are a VIP.

You are a VIP, Philip.

The next morning, we woke up and that was taking my shoulder.

What?

What is it? I don't know. There's a car coming.

The guards jump up and there's a vehicle approaching.

This man in the old army greatcoat gets out.

Suddenly, the guns go down.

And I'm like, it's the Fox.

This is General Shetta, the man who's known as the Fox.

He's a famous rebel commander.

I'd met him many years before.

He's known as the Fox because he'd always avoided kill or capture by the

Sudanese government.

I couldn't be in better hands.

So we set off with the FOC and convoy of cars.

Day one, and we're travelling with rebels from the SLA.

This conflict in Darfur has led to the displacement of over two

million people. The United Nations have described it as the world's worst

humanitarian crisis.

Day six, it's 42 degrees and these men work in these temperatures every day.

Each time we stop, I'll just send a text to Giovanna.

We're inching closer and closer towards the mountains.

But then one morning, we start to see a lot of helicopter activity.

Fairly close to where we were the night before.

It was worrying.

The next day, the Fox has been on multiple sat phones all morning.

Something has clearly happened.

I start to hear tension in the voices of the men.

Something's happened.

Dawood looked shaken.

It was probably the most shaken I'd seen him.

My sat phone had been picked up by the Sudanese intelligence.

They'd been monitoring me every time I turned my phone on.

Dawood was like, no, no, no.

That's not the worst of it. There is a bounty. There's a bounty.

Half a million dollars.

Kill or capture.

On your head.

And this is just devastating news.

And apparently the news is all over in the villages that the Westerner is here,

is in this area.

This cold realisation started to sink in that suddenly...

We were being truly hunted.

I immediately took the sat phone, stripped it down, took out the SIM card,

tossed it.

And suddenly that was it. I realised that, you know, that was my

down. The men armed up.

They were immediately ready for a confrontation.

Thousands of men and cars were sweeping across Darfur looking for me and Dawood.

You know, here I was with a group of men who would essentially give their lives

to get me to the Jebel Mara Mountains.

But that night, we're all pretty shaken, to be honest, and there's a perimeter

set round the camp.

Nobody's smoking any more, there's no fire.

There's no going back, the Chadian border is sealed, I'll be arrested in

I can only go deeper and deeper, with the net closing ever tighter, and this

bounty on my head.

Our only hope is to travel southeastern to Jabalmara.

The SLA still control the mountains.

If only we can reach them, we should be safe.

But in the morning, the fox is not looking happy.

And I thought, you know, what's going on?

It's a problem with rebels up in the mountains.

There's bad blood.

There's a difference between the rebels in the desert plains and the rebels in

the mountains.

Now the mountain SLA are refusing to rendezvous with Fox's men.

And I need these two groups to work together.

We're so close to the mountains now, you know, literally under 100 kilometres.

Tell him we need to find another safe way up into the mountains.

And Fox sort of...

Smuggler.

He goes on to explain that he has this contact, a smuggler from an Arab tribe

who regularly moves in and out of the mountains.

How do we know we can trust this man?

I asked the fox, how can we trust this smuggler?

And he says, you can't.

What do you think?

It's a risk, but...

I've got no other choice.

So we set off with Fox to meet the smuggler.

They tell me to stay in the car, and I watch the deal being done.

Eventually, they call me over.

There's quite a thick -set, burly man there.

This must be the smuggler.

He has a strong grip, but he doesn't look me in the eye.

I have a bad feeling.

But as much as none of us seem to trust this guy, this is what we have to deal

with.

Fox and his boys disappear off into the night.

We've now changed hands.

Now it feels maybe, just maybe, I'm with touching distance of the mountains.

But I also know that anything can happen.

So I've placed the tracker on the dashboard.

And we're in these bumpy, bumpy mountain passes.

We turn this corner and suddenly, bang!

This bright flare of headlights flashes straight into our eyes.

This is an ambush.

I press the tracker button on the dashboard, duck it in my pants.

I hear that all being beaten.

And suddenly, I'm just staring down the barrel of an AK -47.

They

put

a blindfold on me. I was shooting along at high speed.

I keep pressing that red button of the tracker.

I just don't want to lose the tracker because without it, Giovanna, she's not

going to know where I am.

On the 27th of December, my phone went off and I saw a message saying red

alert. Phil had pressed that red button on his tracker.

OK, so I had to take a deep breath and I was trembling.

I tried to call Phil on his satellite phone and I couldn't get through.

This dot on the map was moving back north.

That dot became the only link with them.

Finally, after about an hour of driving, we stop and they pull me out and

they're shouting.

This is for the tracker.

It just clicks. It's like, they know about this tracker. The only person who

could have told them would be this mother.

I think, you know, he sold us out.

And they're just tearing the truck apart, trying to find the tracker.

I've got the truck.

Get rid of it. Get rid of it now. Get rid of it.

Get rid of it now.

And I throw it.

The commander immediately runs over.

He lifts his gun and just pumps two bullets into the tracker.

That's it. That's my last lifeline.

My last link to London and Giovanna.

So the next morning, I wake up

and Al and I are now in scrubland.

We've been left with these two guys with AK -47s.

The desert sun starts beating down and I can feel it burning my skin already and

it's pretty brutal.

What I want more than anything is I want a phone.

I want to tell Giovanna that I'm alive.

The second day of being a hostage, I call one of the guards over and I reach

into my shoe and I pull out the photo that I've kept hidden for weeks of my

small son, Romeo.

This is my son. I want to call him to tell him his daddy's OK.

I hold it up and I say, I've got to phone, phone, tell him I'm alive, tell

I'm alive.

The guard just dismisses me.

So I start to have this idea.

Later on, when they try and bring me food and water, I refuse it and I keep

holding up the photo and I say, phone, phone, phone.

And this happens on and off throughout the whole day and then into the next day

also.

And I could see they're getting frustrated.

They're getting, you know, nervous about this.

I'm thinking, just stick with it, stick with it.

Don't eat, don't drink.

I haven't eaten or drunk anything for 24 hours.

I realise that now I have this power, they don't want me to get sick. I'm

half a million dollars.

I push away breakfast, I push away dinner, and breakfast again the next

I'm starting to be exhausted, just the dust and the heat and not eating and

being held hostage.

And eventually, the end of day three, they come over and everything comes to a

head and I just hold it up and burst into tears.

He came back and he had a phone.

And I was like, my God.

And then suddenly my mind goes blank.

And I can't remember the number of my house in London.

It was Christmas Day, 3 o 'clock in the afternoon, and my home phone rings.

Hello? And then this voice goes... It's me.

And I was like, oh, my God.

Fia, are you OK?

Are you OK?

Can you hear me?

Yes, yes, I can hear you, yeah.

I hear you.

And I just say... I haven't got long. We've been taken.

It's a militia group.

It's a small group.

I was trying to get...

Where are you, Phil?

Please, can you give me the name of the place?

We're about a couple of k from where I pressed the emergency button.

And they're going to sell us to the government.

Happy Christmas.

And then the phone went dead.

I was like trembling and at the same time happy.

I didn't know. Lots of emotions inside me.

Yeah, I look at Dowd and he's got tears in his eyes.

It's just a moment where we realise, you know, after that phone call, I somehow

felt we had a chance, there was hope again.

Finally, one night after about now six, seven days, we see these lights coming

towards us.

And it's the commander's car.

And we realize this is it.

You know, something's about to happen.

They said that he's going to be sold to the government of Sudan.

But Daoud's going to be given his freedom.

And this is because they're worried about making Dawood's tribe angry.

Look up.

We need to swap the bags.

He's going to take that rucksack with the drives and all the footage, and I'll

take his.

I don't even get a moment to say goodbye to Dawood. We're just suddenly

separated, and I'm put in the front with a pickup.

And I realize, that's it. Now I'm completely alone.

We just start driving, going fast through the night.

So we come round the dirt track and suddenly the headlights illuminate this

of men in Sydney -governed military uniforms.

They beckon me out and the soldiers sort of come around me

and obviously I'm the object of curiosity.

And I just looked down in horror.

The bag at my feet is my bag, the bag that they're all supposed to have.

And this bag contains the drives of all my footage for the last week.

For the Sydney's intelligence and army to get hold of these drives, they'll be

able to blow some cover stories. It will put lives at risk.

I can feel the perspiration just running down my back. Look, look, let me help

you. So I step forward, and I take the bag in his hands as well, and I help him

shake it. Just camera equipment, all camera equipment. But really, with my

thumb, I'm holding his drive.

My heart is just like, boom, boom, boom, pounding, pounding.

like a relief sweeps through my body and maybe these can stay hidden

so then i'm taking out the tent and i'm put in this car

but the journey is a sort of blur the dawn starts to come

up as we approach this city then suddenly

i'm pushed downwards and i start to get worried why are they not letting me be

seen My mind is sort of racing and

maybe they're going to execute me.

They put a blindfold on me.

I'm being walked across tarmac and I hear this big whirring sound.

And it's like an aeroplane.

This whirring sound is louder and louder, but somehow I feel like I'm

And I realize I'm on the cargo ramp at the back of this plane.

And the whirring just gets stronger, and the plane starts to move.

I can feel the speed increasing.

And then the man up here says in really bad English, We will throw you from the

plane.

Please, please, don't kill me.

I'm terrified, but I start to beg them. I'm like, please, don't throw me from

the plane.

Don't kill me.

I just almost can't think anything. I'm a bit numb.

My body's just cold.

Just adrenaline and sweat.

And I look across at the seat opposite.

I'm just like, my God, it's Doe.

And I realize they've taken him as well.

After a few hours, the plane starts to descend.

I looked out of the window in this huge, sprawling city, and I realized, you

know, there has to be Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, the heart of the

We land.

I'm then just not sure where I am, but I'm led inside what I think is like a

warehouse.

I'm forced down onto my knees.

Suddenly there's just, like, silence.

I realise this must be some black site, some torture interrogation centre.

Dawood looks at me and he just shakes his head like this, like...

This is bad.

This is really bad.

Daud just is taking these blows.

He doesn't shout.

It seems to infuriate the people hitting him, and they hit him hard.

There's

two

doors, and they take me into one door, and they take Daud into the other door.

There's a chair bolted to the floor.

This is a room you just do not want ever to be brought into.

Two men sit down on the desk.

One's writing, and the other man, he looks obviously like he's in charge.

He has the air of an academic, very calm.

Who are you?

And what were you doing in Darfur?

I'm a British journalist.

I came to Darfur to make a film.

This is not true.

And we know it.

You are a spy.

Am I safe?

CIA? I'm not a spy.

I'm a British journalist.

He says I'm sorry, Philip. We don't believe you.

Suddenly there's this bolt in my back and I'm thrown out of the chair against

the wall. It's just this burning, like a fire stick's been put onto your back.

I've been electrocuted.

I ask again.

And he's like, right, who did you meet, what happened? I'm telling him as best I

can the details of how we crossed in Chad, who met us.

Who is the fox?

I'm also trying to hide certain names. What was your angry point? So this

interrogation continues.

It's just like a blur.

You know, it's questioned.

What is your relationship with Dawoud Khali? Being hurt.

Give me the name of the rebel.

Who are you?

By this time, it's been about eight hours of interrogation, and I'm just

completely broken.

Probably the lowest point I've ever been in my life.

Then I'm suddenly blindfolded again, fog -marked by a man again through this

warehouse, and I can sort of sense now it's nighttime, it's night.

There's a smell of, like, excrement.

and rubbish and i'm forced to kneel down and i feel him there's like a metallic

object and i presume it's a weapon and i can feel the man with me take two steps

back and then i start to panic it's all clicking in my brain like they've done

the interrogation i've been kept hidden now they're just going to get rid of me

they're going to dump my body somewhere this is an execution

And then suddenly he takes my shoulder and walks me off again.

I'm clearly now in some sort of institution.

And he just pushes me in and I just fall to the ground.

There's this muscular young black guy and he stands up and he says, which

means stand in Arabic.

I'm thinking, you know, is this man going to attack me?

He turns around and he gets something from the wall.

It's a toothbrush.

I clean my teeth, like, slowly brushing, and I'm like, oh, I mean, it just feels

like a bit of a human being again. It feels good.

I feel suddenly very emotional.

This man is obviously a fellow prisoner, has just shared everything he had with

me.

I close my eyes and drift into perhaps the first sleep for many days.

I woke up the following morning and the man who was squatting by the wall

opposite, he pointed to himself and said, Karim, and then pointed at me and

I said, Philip.

One day passed, another day passed, it turned into a week, then another week.

I was never let out of the cell.

Time to time, suddenly the door would be pulled open and my name would be

called.

And I'd be taken back to that black site.

They were just asking me endless questions, endless questions.

Nobody was telling me that I had been charged.

Nobody was telling me how long I would be there.

Kareem told me, you know, he'd been there for eight months with no charge

still no idea when he'd be released.

You're never let out of the cell.

There's no TV, no radio, no books, no pens, no paper.

There's just nothing. It's bare.

My thoughts would often turn to Daud.

Were they continuing to torture him? I couldn't help but feel guilty that we'd

ended up like this.

Now it's just emptiness and it's like a battle with your mind Real

black angry despair You don't know if you're here for two days or a year

And

for me that was just

Terrifying thought.

We pulled back to thinking about London and Giovanna and what she would be

saying to Romeo.

I knew by now he would be asking, where's Daddy?

And I wondered, what was Giovanna doing?

How she must be feeling, what she was going through.

And did she even know where I was?

Eventually, we got to know Phil was in the notorious prison in Khartoum, where

all the political activists are held and tortured.

From that moment onward, basically, I was a machine.

I was on my most aggressive behaviour with anyone concerned.

The Sudanese government with the authorities here in the UK.

Trying to kind of like say, OK, either you release him or you charge him. No,

husband needs my help!

Nothing else matters.

One day the guard...

come to the bars and he gives me this letter.

It was an ordinary day in January and I wrote this letter and, you know, I

tried to be very positive. I wanted to let him know that we

were fine but we didn't want him to feel guilty.

It was not his fault.

Everybody was loving him and didn't blame him for anything.

Not to worry about his work not working out as he wanted.

Not to worry about us because we were behind him and working non -stop to make

sure that he was coming home very soon.

I have to close it quickly because this is just... I don't want to cry,

basically.

So the man thinks I've finished and he says, give it to me, give it to me.

Like they're taking a part of me away.

I knew inside myself that Philae is someone...

who is very resilient and doesn't give up easily.

There came a moment when I realized that something had to change.

And I had to start taking care of myself.

And I just started running on the spot.

And I closed my eyes and I was running around a park in London.

I knew that Kareem understood that every man's got to find his own way to

survive that space.

Then one day, this guard comes up to my door and he says, Mr. Philip. Home!

It's the first time they've ever asked me to take my bag with me.

Go, go.

Go, go.

Go.

Home? Home.

He's happy, but I know what it's like to see another man released and you're

kept in.

We give each other a hug and I say, Thank you, thank you.

And then I just leave.

And I go out into the courtyard.

Then the guard appears, and in his hand is the rucksack.

It's the rucksack with the drives in.

I feel my thumbs at the back, and I realize the drives are still there.

He thinks I'm smiling, saying thank you, but I'm smiling just thinking, I've

done it. This is not in vain. On those drives, everything we've done, this is

the whole story, our story, Dawood and I.

And it's there. It's in my hand.

I think the experience of feeling the wood, of all the pain that I went

the pain that we went through as families, I think still is worth it.

We went there to try and show what was happening to the Darfurri people.

And even though in one sense we failed in our mission to discover chemical

weapons and what was happening in those mountains, we had another story.

From those drives and everything I'd shot on them, we managed to show the

of what the Sydney's government was prepared to do to stop anyone reporting

Darfur. Our story was what then we managed to get out to the world.