Sudan jails 19 Christians on unfounded allegations

Originally published in Christian Daily International

At least 19 Christians were arrested in Sudan’s city of Madani on various occasions in January and February, area sources said. 

Seven Christians were arrested by security personnel associated with the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) on January 21 as the group traveled from Barakat to Madani, capital of Al Jazirah state, according to local reports. They were accused of being supporters of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has been fighting the SAF since April 2023.

The members of different churches belonging to the Sudan Council of Churches were on their way to a thanksgiving prayer meeting of a body known as the Inter-Church Committee. Madani is 136km southeast of the capital, Khartoum.

Attorney Shinbago Mugaddam confirmed the arrests, saying the Christians were initially held in the Joint Military Cell on Nile Avenue in Madani, where they were subjected to extensive interrogation for a week before they were transferred to Madani Prison.

He identified the Christians as Akech Otin, Abraham John, Patrice Saeed, Peter Makuei, Rani Andraws, Ammanuel and James. They have all denied being supporters of the RSF. 

Church leaders in Sudan said there was no evidence that the arrested Christians had ties with RSF and called for their immediate release. 

“A group of Church leaders in the area requested that the Christians be released since they are not supporters of RSF through a letter from the churches in the area, but the Christians remain in prison,” Mugaddam told Morning Star News. 

Some 94km from Madani, 12 Christians have been arrested since January in Wad Rawah, Al Jazirah state, on the pretext of being supporters of the RSF, Mugaddam said. Their whereabouts were unknown, he said.

Christian rights groups described the arrests as a systematic effort to rid Sudan of Christianity.

“This is systematic targeting of Christians who are arrested without taking them to a court of law to get justice,” Mugaddam said. 

Sudan’s military-led government in May approved a law restoring broad powers and immunities to intelligence officers that had been stripped after the ousting of President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The General Intelligence Service (GIS) Law (2024 Amendment) empowers intelligence officers to summon and interrogate individuals, conduct surveillance and searches, detain suspects and seize assets, according to the Sudan War Monitor.

The amendment granted extensive immunity, shielding agents from criminal or civil prosecution without the approval of the head of GIS. In capital punishment cases, it gave the director authority to form a special court.

“Any act committed by any member of the agency in good faith during or because of the performance of his job duties, or the performance of any duty imposed on him, or from any act issued by him under any authority authorised or granted to him under this law, shall not be considered a crime,” the law’s Article 52 states, according to the Sudan War Monitor. 

Sudan was ranked #5 among the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian in Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List (WWL), down from #8 the prior year. 

Conditions in Sudan worsened as civil war that broke out in April 2023 intensified. Sudan registered increases in the number of Christians killed and sexually assaulted and Christian homes and businesses attacked, according to the WWL report. 

“Christians of all backgrounds are trapped in the chaos, unable to flee. Churches are shelled, looted and occupied by the warring parties,” the report stated. 

Both the RSF and the SAF are Islamist forces that have attacked displaced Christians on accusations of supporting the other’s combatants. 

The conflict between the RSF and the SAF, which had shared military rule in Sudan following an October 2021 coup, has terrorised civilians in Khartoum and elsewhere, killing tens of thousands and displacing more than 12.9 million people within and beyond Sudan’ borders, according to the UN Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR).

The SAF’s General Abdelfattah al-Burhan and his then-vice president, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, were in power when civilian parties in March 2023 agreed on a framework to re-establish a democratic transition the next month, but disagreements over military structure torpedoed final approval.

Burhan sought to place the RSF – a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militias that had helped former strongman Al-Bashir put down rebels – under the regular army’s control within two years, while Dagolo would accept integration within nothing fewer than 10 years.

Both military leaders have Islamist backgrounds while trying to portray themselves to the international community as pro-democracy advocates of religious freedom.

Sudan had dropped out of the top 10 of the WWL list for the first time in six years when it first ranked No. 13 in 2021.

Following two years of advances in religious freedom in Sudan after the end of the Islamist dictatorship under Bashir in 2019, the spectre of state-sponsored persecution returned with the military coup of October 25 2021. After Bashir was ousted from 30 years of power in April 2019, the transitional civilian-military government had managed to undo some sharia (Islamic law) provisions. It outlawed the labeling of any religious group “infidels” and thus effectively rescinded apostasy laws that made leaving Islam punishable by death.

With the October 25 2021 coup, Christians in Sudan feared the return of the most repressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law. 

The US State Department in 2019 removed Sudan from the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) that engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom” and upgraded it to a watch list. Sudan had previously been designated as a CPC from 1999 to 2018.

In December 2020, the State Department removed Sudan from its Special Watch List.

The Christian population of Sudan is estimated at 2 million, or 4.5% of the total population of more than 43 million.

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