KHARTOUM, Sudan — Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj returned home to Sudan on Friday, a day after being released from six years of custody at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp where he described conditions as "bad and getting worse."

Al-Haj, 38, whose detention drew worldwide condemnation, was released from the U.S. military prison along with two other Sudanese. All three arrived at the airport in Sudan's capital of Khartoum aboard U.S. military plane.

The cameraman, who had been on a hunger strike for the last 16 months to protest conditions at the prison, grimaced as he was carried off the plane by U.S. military personnel.

He was put on a stretcher and taken straight to a hospital.

Al-Jazeera showed footage of al-Haj on a stretcher, looking feeble with his eyes closed but smiling. Some of the men surrounding his stretcher were kissing him on the cheek.

"Thank God...for being free again," he told Al-Jazeera from his hospital bed. "Our eyes have the right to shed tears after we have spent all those years in prison. ... But our joy is not going to be complete until our brothers in Guantanamo Bay are freed."