At 1:35pm on January 15, 2013, Nhial boarded Ethiopian Airlines flight 491 from Juba to Addis Ababa. He wore a hat to cover his Nuer tribal scars, settled into his seat, and landed two hours later in Ethiopia. He took off his hat, strode into the sunlight, and asked a Nuer stranger for help. Together, they drove into town.

When Nhial was a small boy, Northern Sudanese militias entered his village, grabbed his leg, and pulled him into a truck. They took him to their home in the north of the country, where he worked as a slave into adulthood, eventually escaping to Khartoum, and then Egypt, arriving in Israel in 2007. Once there he worked in a hotel in Jerusalem, saved money, and read extensively about the risks of living in modern-day South Sudan. In June 2011 he bought a ticket for Juba, arriving on July 2, 2011, a week before South Sudan became an independent country. He rested for a day, and then sought employment in the oil industry, but his applications were ignored, even as his Dinka friends were hired. Instead, he opened a small stall in a market, selling sweets, making just enough to live.

In 2013, a day after the outbreak of the civil war, Dinka soldiers arrived at his market stall, grabbed his sweets and money, and demanded that he leave. He did, jogging to the IDP camp, where we ran into each other a week later, recognizing each other from Jerusalem. He told me he did not regret his choice to return, despite being forced to flee to the camp. We met again on January 16, by chance on the same flight to Addis, him fleeing the country, me returning home. He still did not regret his choice and, half a year later, joined the opposition military in South Sudan. In 2014 I visited him in Gambella in Ethiopia, where he was still satisfied with his choice to repatriate.

OBI never assisted Nhial in returning, but if they had, they would have done no wrong. He was never coerced into leaving nor paid to leave, saving up money himself. He researched the risks of living in South Sudan before he returned, thought about his decision extensively, and endangered himself alone when boarding the flight.