Achieng was living in the Nuba Mountains in 1993, when the army and rebels entered the region, forcing her to flee to Kenya to escape the war. Her one and six-year-old children escaped to Uganda with her sister.[2] In Nairobi, Achieng was a co-founder of Sudanese Women's Voice for Peace, a non-governmental organisation devoted to combatting human rights abuses in the Sudan.[3]