Muslims’ long-standing attempts to seize Christian schools in Sudan continued this month despite the war-defeated people evacuated to facilities, sources said.
Islamic business interests have sent three Muslims who have been powerfully entering Sudan’s evangelical evangelical schools in Omdurman on September 3, across the Nile, threatening hundreds of Christians who have been evacuated by internal wars, and told them by local church leaders whose names have been held for security reasons.
The intruder headed to the office of the principal of a school belonging to the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (Specification) and smashed the office door, church leaders said. Without closing the deadline, the intruder threatened to steal the facility with force, he said.
The agency was subjected to numerous attacks during the administration of resigned President Omar al-Bashir. It was mainly attacked by supporters of Muslim businessmen who tried to seize the land with forces accompanied by police.
On April 3, 2017, a church leader was stabbed and attackers attempted to take over it while defending a Christian woman at the facility. Elder Younan Abdullah Kambu of nearby Bari Evangelical Church later died in a hospital.
During the same attack, Elder Ayub Kamama was also stabbed by his chest and hand, trying to steal a knife from one of the assailants.
According to the Open Doors ‘2025 World Watch List (WWL) report, conditions in Sudan have been exacerbated since April 2023 when it emerged between the Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan Army (SAF).
“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 attempted to deploy the RSF, a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militia, which helped former Army Bashir under normal military control in defeating the rebels within two years, but Dagoro accepted the merger 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.
