For more than two years, Sudan has been mired in a brutal civil war, a war that has devastated the country.

Last month, NPR international correspondent Emmanuel Akenwatu gained rare access to the capital city Khartoum.

That is where the war erupted, and much of the city, once homes more than 6 million people, has been damaged or destroyed.

Emmanuel worked with Sudanese producer Amar Awad. He's 48, and he's lived in Sudan most of his life.

While reporting on the impact of the war on his country, Awad was also confronted with his own loss.

This one? It's mine.

Among the many places they visited, Awad's family home, a big brick bungalow on the outskirts of Khartou.

He and his family were forced to flee during the war.

Now it's uninhabitable.

There are fallen walls, heaps a brick.

And they take the roof from us. The metal roof ripped off. The house ransacked and looted. And all of them, they came. Yeah, as I know, they take it. Some of the family's belongings lie scattered in the rubble.

Yeah, this is Quran of my dad.

The Quran of his dad.

Walking through the shattered pieces of the life he once lived, the home he once loved, he's overcome.

In Arabic, Awad says his feelings are not of sadness, but forgiveness.

If he who ripped wood from this home, he says, and used it to light a fire to cook with,

we forgive him.

If he who who stole from here with someone in need, we forgive him.

Consider this.

This house can be rebuilt, Awad says.

But unlike the house, he says, the once united people of Sudan,

they may never come back together. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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