December 21, 2006—With his mother dead, seven-year-old Emmanuel Jal was sent to Ethiopia to train as a soldier in the Sudan People's Liberation Army. By the age of nine Jal was fighting in major battles in Sudan's brutal armed conflict—one of many war children to fall victim to the ongoing violence in the country's Darfur region.

But Jal was lucky—a British aid worker smuggled him out of the army and enrolled him in school in neighboring Kenya. Now the former soldier is a rising hip-hop artist who uses his gospel-inspired songs to spread powerful messages about the horrors of war—and the capacity to heal.

"Music has no boundaries," Jal says. "Music is just like love, basically. You can't stop it. When it happens, it just penetrates."

See All "Sudan: Country in Crisis" Videos
• Video Series Introduction
• Part One: Country in Crisis (Sudan Overview)
• Part Two: The Lost Boy
• Part Three: The Reporter
• Part Four: The Witness
• Part Five: The War Child
• Part Six: The Activist