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Sudan: An ignored war rages, afflicting Christians

Most Sudanese Christians are Roman Catholic or Protestant. There is a small number of Greek Orthodox Christians there. Click here for information about their community.

“In Sudan, an ignored war rages, afflicting Christians,” by Peter Kenny, Ecumenical News, October 10, 2024:

Since April 15, 2023, a civil war has engulfed Sudan between the nation’s military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

This conflict has thrown the country into chaos and devastation, according to The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy also known as TIMEP….

Less talked about but equally horrific is the consistent targeting of the country’s Christian community….

An estimated 5.4 percent of Sudan’s nearly 50 million people are Christian, while 91 percent are Sunni Muslims.

The current violations against the Christian community are etched in a bleak history of persecution of religious minorities, especially during Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year rule.

Then, a strict legal system based on Muslim Sharia law was imposed on all Sudanese.

Regardless of their religion or belief. Bashir’s regime employed many intimidation and harassment approaches, specifically against Christians, including destroying worship places, prosecuting religious leaders, and confiscating religious properties, among other tactics.

The 2011 independence of South Sudan, the predominantly Christian component of the previously unified Sudan, dealt an additional blow to the Christian community that remained in the northern part of the country.

Three months later, Bashir declared Sudan would adopt an entirely Islamic constitution.

Since then, attacks on churches and Christians worsened.

The Sudanese revolution overthrew Bashir in 2019, but his legacy survived within the SAF and the RSF, the two sides fighting the current war….

The transition period saw various violations:

Churches were burned and demolished.

Religious leaders were arbitrarily arrested.

The General Intelligence Service continued interrogating and threatening members of the Christian community.

At the same time, authorities continued denying Christians some rights, including the right to a place of worship, by rejecting requests to build new churches.

The worsening situation for Christians set the scene for war crimes committed against the places of worship, as well as the grave human rights violations against freedom of religion and belief, as soon as the war broke out in April 2023.

More than 165 churches have closed since the start of the war, while others have been destroyed as both the RSF and the SAF seem to have intentionally targeted churches.

On April 17, 2023, only two days after the war started, RSF launched its first attack against a church, the Anglican Cathedral in central Khartoum.

The church was seized after the attack and used as a military base by the RSF after they physically assaulted and forced people sheltering there to leave.

On April 17, 2023, only two days after the war started, RSF launched its first attack against a church in central Khartoum, the Sudanese capital.

The RSF gained ground as the war raged, systematically targeting churches and Christians in the areas they controlled. On May 13, 2023, they attacked Mar Girgis Coptic Church (St. George) in the Al-Masalam neighborhood in Omdurman.

The church was looted and vandalized. Four men, including the priest, were shot in the attack, and another man was stabbed.

The attackers insulted those inside the church, calling them “sons of dogs and infidels,” and sought to force them to convert to Islam while threatening the priest with a dagger in his back….

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