Sudan: Another Church Building Torched, Ninth in Two Years

Persecution of Christians in Sudan: many centuries ago, during the time of the Emperor Justinian (AD 527-565), Nubia (modern-day Sudan) was a center of Christianity. Today, most of the small minority of Sudanese who are Christians are Roman Catholic or Protestant, and there is also still a small number of Greek Orthodox Christians there.

The question in this article, “When you build a church in Tambul…do you want the area to be a disgraced place?,” succinctly illustrate the difficulties that Christians face in the nation. May Almighty God bless Sudan nonetheless with a genuine transformation, and turn the hearts of the governing authorities and the people to Christ in repentance.

For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Sudan, see here.

“Another Church Building Set Ablaze in Sudan,” Morning Star News, February 17, 2021:

JUBA, South Sudan (Morning Star News) – The ninth church building in two years to be set ablaze in Sudan was torched last month, sources said.

Suspected Muslim extremists set fire to the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) building in the rural Tambul area of Al Jazirah, Al Jazirah state southeast of Khartoum, on Jan. 3, said the Rev. Kuwa Shamal, head of mission for the SCOC.

Hate messages against Christians circulated on social media in the area in the weeks leading up to the arson, according to local church leaders.

Jubrial Tutu, pastor of the SCOC church in Tambul, described the arson as direct persecution of Christians.

Pastor Shamal said Sunday worshipers at the SCOC church had left the building a few minutes before the arson attack. Serving congregations of various denominations, the building was the only worship hall in the Tambul area, he said.

“They targeted the church because they do not want to see any sign of the cross in the area,” Pastor Shamal told Morning Star News.

Several social media posts have urged Muslims in Sudan to resist any church officials’ attempts to obtain approval for land for church buildings.

“In every city or village where Muslims live, they should not allow anything that belongs to infidels such as church buildings to be there,” one commentator posted in January.

Another urged Muslims in Tambul to prohibit the existence of another church building. “When you build a church in Tambul…do you want the area to be a disgraced place?” he wrote.

The burning of the church in Tambul marks the ninth time a Christian worship hall has been set ablaze since 2019, according to Demas Mragan, a Christian rights and aid advocate in Khartoum.

Muslim extremists who burned down a church’s worship places in Omdurman five times since January 2019 threatened to kill congregation members if they put up another temporary structure to continue worshipping, sources said.

In December police arrested nine of the 14 radical Muslims who burned down the temporary worship structures SCOC in the Dar El-Salam area of Omdurman, across the Nile River from Khartoum, said the attorney representing the Christians.

Saying they didn’t want a Christian presence in the area, the extremists had burned down the structures on Jan. 19, 2019, and in 2020 on Jan. 4, Jan. 19, Jan. 28, and Aug. 7, sources said.

The church decided to report the attacks to police after the Aug. 7 arson in spite of the threats….

Sudan ranked 13th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2021 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.