(LifeSiteNews) — Christians continue to be indiscriminately targeted by both factions in Sudan’s bloody civil war, a new report has found.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released an update to its data on Sudan, documenting the state of the religious freedom in the nation in light of the civil war which began in April 2023.
“Indiscriminate attacks on Christian churches, for example, has been a recurring feature of both forces’ operations, reportedly forcing the closure of over 165 churches and severely limiting many others’ activities,” the USCIRF writes.
The two forces referred to by the USCIRF are the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been engaged in a bitter and bloody civil war for over two years. Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees suggest that over 12 million people have been displaced due to the conflict.
Precise data is lacking, but official estimates from the U.S. government put the Sudanese population around 49 million, with a heavy majority – 91 percent – being Sunni Muslims. Just 5.4 percent are Christian: this number comprising Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants.
Estimates vary widely about the number of people believed to have died, with conditions on the ground making such determinations difficult, along with the extra factor of the numerous deaths that come as an indirect result of the fighting due to starvation and illness. By May 2024, a U.S. government envoy estimated up to 150,000 people had died, but that figure was believed to be much higher, and has since grown.
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. State Department wrote that both the RST and the SAF had committed war crimes, and later that the RSF had committed genocide.
In the midst of this, Christians and their places of worship have been targeted: it seems, without regard.
The USCIRF highlighted how the RSF had appropriated an Anglican church as a military base and evicted those sheltering inside, before separately setting fire to an Evangelical church and then attacking a church of the Sudanese Church of Christ and wounding many.
Anti-Christian sentiment from the two warring factions has been notably fierce, as both sides have “particularly subjected Christians to systematic and arbitrary detentions under abysmal conditions.”
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So dire are the conditions which the USCIRF research found that prisoners have died from the living conditions in an “unknown number.”
Additionally, for those who have escaped being rounded-up and forcibly detained, conditions remain severe. For example, SAF has reportedly prevented aid from reaching specific areas of the country that are home to significant religious and ethnic minority communities, such as the Nuba Mountains region. Both warring parties, wrote the USCIRF, have taken to using the distribution of aid packages as a weapon in itself, forcing Christians to convert to Islam in order to receive much needed aid.
As a result of these a similar recurring attacks, Christians in Sudan have been forced, wrote the USCIRF, to “worship and carry out other traditions in hiding as a protection mechanism from the unwanted attention of either warring faction.”
Prior to the outbreak of the current violence, Pope Francis visited neighboring South Sudan in early 2023 to call for peace and to take part in a number of high-level ecumenical events with Anglican prelate Justin Welby.
But Muslims themselves have not been exempt from persecution, although the scale has been considerably less than that waged against the Sudanese Christian population. Armed strikes have been made against mosques to destroy them, often with Muslims inside at the time of the strike resulting in many fatalities. Meanwhile, Muslims in prison have reportedly been beaten by guards for “praying without permission.”
In June, a Catholic priest was killed during an attack on the city of El Fasher by the RSF. Despite the intensity of the conflict, Father Luka Jomo is believed to be just the first Catholic priest killed as a result of the fighting.
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) noted that – as is the case in Gaza – many have turned to the Catholic Church for assistance and as a physical place of refuge.
But despite the immediate hardships, the religious communities present in Sudan have not neglected to promote the spiritual life of the Catholic Church. Writing in June last year, a Salesian missionary priest described how the war has enabled people to “come closer in their relationship with God.”
“They participate daily in the morning Eucharist, the rosary service and the half-hour adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with the recitation of the chaplet to the Divine Mercy in the evening,” Father Jacob Thelekkadan commented about life at the Salesian center close to Khartoum.
While also the war had originally led to a dirth of seminarians, Bishop Yunan Tombe of the Diocese of El Obeid recently rejoiced at having 70 men in formation and six men due to be ordained. “I divide my time between the people and God. I get my strength from the Blessed Sacrament and believe that this is my strength and my joy,” said the bishop, who was himself abducted by the RSF, and beaten so badly that he was left for dead by the roadside.
Sudan, the USCIRF wrote, is “engulfed in this brutal and drawn-out violence, leaving civilians from all religious communities deeply vulnerable and preventing their ability to practice and express their religion or belief openly and freely.”
