David McGuffin is the CBC's Africa correspondent, based in Nairobi. Previously, he was bureau chief in Moscow for Feature Story News (FSN), a British broadcast news service with clients that include CBC Radio, National Public Radio, PBS and ABC News. He reported from across the former Soviet Union during the last turbulent years of the Yeltsin administration. He went on to open FSN's Beijing bureau in 2000 before joining CTV News as their Asia correspondent. He also spent two years in Rome, reporting on Vatican and European affairs for ABC News and NBC News. He got his start in journalism at PBS's MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in Washington, D.C., where his last job was as foreign editor of the show's award-winning website. An Ottawa native, he graduated from Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., and from the journalism program at the University of King's College in Halifax.

At first it seems so absurd, I can't believe it's happening. Two white Toyota pickup trucks pull to a halt beside our car as we unload our camera equipment in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. It's mid-afternoon and the temperature is stifling, hovering in the low 40s. We take little notice of the trucks as we began walking to our hotel entrance 10 feet away. Out of the backs of the trucks jump about 20 plainclothes police. They quickly surround us. They demand to see our identification. I demand theirs.

An officer shows me his National Security identification card — turns out these are the shock troops of President Omar El Bashir's hardline government. We show them our government-issued filming permits. In theory this allows us to film in Khartoum, but we aren't even filming. Unimpressed, the senior officer among them demands to take our television camera. We refuse. I am angry. We haven't done anything wrong, even by the abnormally paranoid standards of El Bashir's Sudan.

But my anger turns to fear. We are being shoved and shouted at. I am held. Cameraman Simon Munene is punched in the head repeatedly and then lifted into the back of one of the trucks. He's bleeding from his right eye as four men sit on him and continue to grab for the camera. I try to reach him. I'm held back. I scream for help.

I plead with a uniformed police officer standing to the side of the melee. He just looks at me shaking his head and slowly backs away. These men are thugs. They are on their way to break up anti-government demonstrations in the centre of town. What frightens me is that they clearly have been given a free hand. They don't care that we are a foreign television crew, or that we haven't done anything wrong.

At this point our producer, Stephanie Jenzer, emerges from the hotel. She had astutely run inside when the trouble began and roused help. The hotel owners brought down their own security people. After a discussion in Arabic, the mood cooled. Simon was released with his camera. They took the tape from inside. The police piled back into their trucks and with a few clenched fists raised in the air, drove off — presumably to carry on in a similar way with demonstrators a few blocks away.

We found out later that the same day, police also beat up a radio correspondent for the BBC Arabic service. Our cameraman had to be taken to hospital. Luckily the damage to his eye, which was swollen shut by then, wasn't permanent. With proper treatment Munene would be all right.

He returned home to Kenya within two days.

Long wait for visas, incorrect permits

This was simply the most dramatic moment of what proved to be an incredibly difficult two-week trip into Sudan — including its western Darfur region, where three years of fighting between militants and government-backed militias has killed more than 200,000 people and forced more than two million to flee their homes.

Even getting as far as Khartoum had been a challenge. Getting visas for all of us took more than two months. A trip we began planning in May didn't actually happen until September. In the end, two radio correspondents didn't come with us because by August, the Sudanese suddenly claimed they had never even seen their visa applications.

To then get into Darfur, you need permission from the government, travel permits and filming permits. Both cost money and take time. We got these documents from the External Information Council after three days in Sudan. But they were written incorrectly in the English version — they gave us permission to go to South Sudan, not Darfur.

Two more days of waiting, during which we had our altercation with the police, and finally our proper permits come through.

Police detention for filming vegetables at market

In Darfur itself we have to check in with local authorities. We are refused the right to film anywhere after we are detained filming spices, vegetables, clothing and vendors in the main market in Darfur's biggest city, El Fasher. Again, our filming permits should allow this.

We are held for several hours by National Security Police while they decide to arrest us or just deport us. In the end they let us stay, but only with the promise that everything we do is done with their permission first. We appeal to office in Khartoum that deals with foreign journalists. They inform us that things in El Fasher are "crazy right now" and there is nothing they can do for us.

The next day, in an effort to get something on tape, we film again in the market and are again detained. We press for the right to go to refugee camps. This is denied, then granted … but we can't film.

More arguing ensues. We can film, but we can't talk to refugees and a government minder has to escort us. This is at least progress, so we agree and film the sprawling refugee camp of Abu Shok with our government minder standing two paces behind us. Refugees, most of who have fled from attacks by government-backed militias, are naturally too fearful to talk to us, even if they were allowed to.

Even faced arrest at peacekeepers' base

We are staying in El Fasher with the African Union peacekeepers at their base. One night we film some Canadian soldiers, two of a handful advising the mission, handing out candy and toys to children outside the base. We also film some cattle passing by and a nearby village, from a distance. Again, tame stuff.

That night Government of Sudan soldiers come to the base to arrest us for illegal filming. The African Union base commander talks them out of it.

From this point we decided to stick entirely with African Union soldiers, on patrols, into refugee camps, in helicopter trips across the territory. For the last three days in Darfur we managed to get some compelling stories on tape. But there was always the looming sense of dread that we would be picked up, arrested and kicked out. Ultimately, the 7,000 AU troops on the peacekeeping force are only in Darfur at the behest of the Sudanese government, so they can only protect us to a point.

Sudan ignores Canadian embassy's complaint

It was with a huge sense of relief when we finally boarded the plane from Khartoum to Nairobi, my home base in Kenya.

The Canadian Embassy in Sudan lodged a complaint with the Sudanese government about the attack on us in Khartoum. They also demanded the return of the stolen tape. As I write this, we have neither received an apology from the Sudanese government nor received the tape.

When I did get to Nairobi, I was welcomed by an e-mail from the Sudan Embassy. It was sent to the Foreign Correspondents Association of East Africa while we were in Darfur.

The note stated: "The fact is that a police was trying to keep order and discipline at the scene … in a bid to protect the Cameraman from the riots taking place at that time. … The CBC crew are now in Darfur, freely covering developments there."