I was held prisoner in Sudan

An award-winning CNN reporter revealed she and her crew were captured in a horrific two-day ordeal in Sudan while covering the humanitarian crisis during the region's civil war.

Chief international affairs correspondent Clarissa Ward, 44, reported in an editorial for CNN published on Wednesday how she and her crew were captured by a militia just hours after arriving in North Darfur earlier this month.

“We had come to Darfur to cover the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and never intended to become part of the story,” Ward wrote. “But months of planning fell apart when we were captured by a militia led by the man everyone called the General.”

The Peabody award-winning reporter said that as militants surrounded their vehicle with “guns drawn,” the “general” shouted at the crew not to film.

Scott McWhinnie, the cameraman, and Brent Swails, a producer, struggled to reassure the angry leader that they were not filming.

But to their horror, the general pulled out a gun and shot a bird with it.

“I was relieved that the gun was not pointed at us, but I was still concerned about his erratic behavior,” Ward wrote.

While the crew's driver was dragged off in chains to a city prison, the crew was interrogated for three hours in a windowless room by eight men who asked questions like: “Why are you here?” “Who sent you here?” “Who gave you permission to be here?”

“We answered their questions but received no answer: who these men were or what they wanted from us,” Ward wrote.

After questioning, they were ordered to return to their vehicle and follow a convoy in front of them. But at some point the general stopped the vehicle, shouted and fired his weapon.

“The goal is probably to scare us. It worked,” Ward said.

Ward told her captors in Arabic that they were afraid and that she was the mother of three boys.

“The general looked disinterested, but I could see the security chief’s face soften.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” he assured me, “we’re human,” Ward said.

She said that over the next two days the crew was held by the general, the security chief and about a dozen militants, some of whom appeared to be as young as 14 years old.

But on the final day of their ordeal, the general and security chief appeared to be in “good spirits.”

He told them they would be released and said, “We thought you were spies, but now you can go home.”

She said she and McWhinnie then posed for a photo op with the head of security. The image, which showed Ward standing “awkwardly” in a red scarf and blue shirt, a militant in camouflage clothing and McWhinnie in a black shirt, was taken in their “makeshift prison”.

Afterwards, they went home and never reached their planned destination, Tawila, for their reporting assignment.

“As a journalist, you never want to become the story,” Ward said. “Nevertheless, our experiences are instructive in understanding the complexities of the conflict in Darfur and the challenges of getting food and aid to those who need it most and getting the story out to the world.”