Police in North Khartoum, Sudan, on August 16, confused funeral prayer meetings to arrest five Christians in South Sudan, church leaders said.
Pastor Peter Peter of Sudan’s Presbyterian Church and four other Christians have been arrested from Elhaji Yusif area in the East Nile district of North Khartoum, church leaders said.
Although Christians apparently were arrested illegally as foreigners in the country, they were not said to be accused or deported, he said. Earlier this month, authorities in the pockets of the war-stricken countries began targeting foreigners for deportation or forced relocation.
Sudanese church leaders said many Christians are living in fear of being arrested at any time as police reportedly go door-to-door detaining South Sudan and Ethiopian citizens.
“In fact, fear is rising among Christians in South Sudan, so they’re still indoors to avoid being arrested,” said a church leader in the area whose names have been withheld for security reasons.
The arrested Christian was taken to Omdurman Prison. Police said one female detainee must either pay £600,000 (US$995) or risk being in prison for six months.
Muslim extremists had taken them to social media urging authorities to arrest Christians in South Sudan.
The area they were arrested has been the home of the Paramilitary Quick Support Forces (RSF) fighting the Sudanese Army (SAF) since April 15, 2023. Both the SAF and the RSF attacked the places of worship.
The situation in Sudan worsened as the civil war that broke out in April 2023 intensified. According to the Open Doors 2025 World Watchlist (WWL) report, Sudan was murdered and the number of Christians who were sexually assaulted and sexually assaulted by Christian homes and businesses.
“Christians from all backgrounds can’t escape and are trapped in chaos. The churches are bombarded, looted and occupied by fighting political parties,” the report states.
Both the RSF and the SAF are Muslim troops that attacked Christians who were evacuated with accusations of supporting other combatants.
According to the UN Commissioner of Human Rights (UNCHR), the conflict with the SAF, which shared military control in Sudan after the October 2021 coup, terrified civilians in Khartoum and elsewhere, killing thousands and expelling more than 11.9 million people across Sudan’s borders.
SAF General Abdelfattah Al-Burhan and his then-President, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, agreed to the framework in March 2023 to reestablish the democratic transition next month, but were in power when discrepancies with the military structure encouraged final recognition.
Burhan put the RSF, a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militia, which helped former principal Omar al-Bashir defeat the rebels, under regular military control within two years, and Dagoro attempted to accept integration within ten years.
Both military leaders have an Islamist background while trying to portray themselves in the international community as a democratic advocate for religious freedom.
Sudan was the most difficult to become a Christian on the Open Doors 2025 World Observation List (WWL), ranking fifth in 50 countries, falling from the eighth of the previous year. Sudan was the first to drop out of the top 10 on the WWL list in six years, ranking 13th in 2021.
Following two years of progress in religious freedom in Sudan after the Muslim dictatorship ended under Bashir in 2019, the state-sponsored ghost of persecution in the 25th October 2021 military coup, the interim civilian judicial government excluded the interim civilian government after Bashir was forced out of power for 30 years in April 2019. It effectively retracted the law of apostasy that prohibited the labeling of “pagans” in religious groups and therefore made Islam punish for death.
During the October 25th, 2021 coup, Sudanese Christians feared returning the most oppressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law.
In 2019, the US State Department removed Sudan from its list of specific countries of concern (CPCs) engaged or tolerated “systematic, continuous and awful violations of religious freedom” and upgraded it to a watchlist. Sudan was previously designated as a CPC from 1999 to 2018.
In December 2020, the State Department removed Sudan from its special watch list.
Sudan’s Christian population is estimated to be 4.5% of the total population of 2 million, or more than 43 million.
