Deo Kato Completes His 8,230 Mile Run From Cape Town To London

On Sunday afternoon, surrounded by hundreds of cheering supporters, Deo Kato took the final steps of a 8,230-mile journey that has taken him 518 days.

Deo is the first person to run from Cape Town to London, doing so to highlight the story of human migration. 

A crowd joined him on his last day as he walked from Greenwich to Downing Street, and then on to his finish line at Hammersmith Studios in West London, where over 300 celebrated Deo’s homecoming and his incredible achievement.

Deo started his run on 24 July 2023, leaving from the Long March to Freedom monument in Cape Town, which commemorates the anti-apartheid struggle of South Africa. He ran through central and eastern Africa, passing through the Ugandan town of Nakulabye where he grew up before moving to London. 

The journey was inspired by telling the story of human migration, and how every human ultimately came from Africa. It’s something Deo believes should be in the curriculum, and he hopes his run will create change in how we think about the history of humans.

But as Deo faced increasing challenges on his run he came to understand migration first-hand from the perspective of migrants currently displaced around the world. For days, even weeks or months, they travel and their families don’t know where they are, or how they are. They face constant struggles and threats to their safety. 

Deo suffered illness through Africa, and faced daily racism as he travelled through Europe, but the worst experience he endured was being arrested in South Sudan, and imprisoned for three weeks. 

Along with his driver Molundo, they spent 11 days in the Riverside Jail, known locally as ‘Mosquito House,’ where they were held in a basement cell. Then they were moved to the Blue House, the headquarters of the country’s National Security Service in Juba. Deo spent 10 days in a cell with no space and no working lightbulb. 

In the end, they were released. No reason was given for their arrest, and all their belongings were returned to them. 

“I think it happened for a reason,” said Deo, “and that is to understand what happens when somebody migrates from one country – maybe they’re fleeing war, they’re fleeing something – and they go to a different country to find peace, but then they end up in a very difficult situation.” He now plans to find a way to “support migrants who are detained when people don’t know about them,” he says.

While the negative stories stand out, Deo wants this to be remembered as a positive experience. He always talks about all the good moments – the people he’s run with, the families he’s met, the support he’s received throughout – because, as he told us a few months ago: “There have been a lot of kind-hearted people throughout the journey,” and that reinforces the fundamental idea of the run: “we are all part of one family.” 

He now wants to create a legacy of hope. 

“I hope that by completing this challenge I will help tell the true story of human migration and to show that representation matters. In highlighting the origins of migration I want to challenge the racist notion that people should ‘go back to where they come from’. The best thing we can do is leave the world, a little better because of our existence, creating our legacy and our lasting footprint”

Now that he’s finished his remarkable run, Deo hopes to be able to go into schools and talk about migration, and after his experience in South Sudan, he wants to be able to support migrants who are detained, and their families don’t know their whereabouts. His own experiences have allowed him to have a much greater understanding of what it really means to be a migrant, and how it can help create positive changes in lives.

“The challenges you face don’t define where you’re going to end up,” Deo says.

If you want to read more about Deo’s incredible run, then we shared the story of his arrest in South Sudan, and then caught up with him as he ran through Croatia. You can see Deo’s Instagram with images from the previous 518 days.