At least 18 Christians were arrested in Sudan’s Madani city on various occasions in January and February, local sources said.
Six Christians associated with the Sudanese Army (SAF) were arrested on January 21 as the group traveled to Madani, the capital of Al Jazilla, according to local reports. They were accused of being supporters of the Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that have been fighting the SAF since April 2023.
Members of various churches belonging to the Sudan Church Council were on their way to a Thanksgiving prayer meeting for the body known as the Inter-Church Commission. Ticks are Khartoum, 85 miles (136 kilometers) southeast of the capital.
Attorney Sinbago Mugadam confirmed his arrest and said Christian was initially detained in a joint military cell on Nile Avenue, Madison, where he was subjected to extensive interrogation for a week before being transferred to Madison prison.
He identified Christians as Akech Otin, Abraham John, Patrice Saeed, Peter Makuei, Rani Andraws, Ammanuel and James. They all deny that they are RSF supporters.
Sudanese church leaders have called for their immediate release, saying there is no evidence that the arrested Christians have been linked to the RSF.
“A group of church leaders in the area have requested that Christians be released as they are not RSF supporters through letters from local churches, but Christians remain in prison,” Magadham told Morningstar News.
About 94 kilometres (58 miles) from the tick, 12 Christians were arrested in Wad Rawah, Al Jazirah, on the pretext of being supporters of the RSF, Mugaddam said. They were unknown whereabouts, he said.
Christian rights groups described the arrest as a systematic effort to drive Sudan out of Christianity.
“This is a systematic targeting of Christians who were arrested without being taken to court to get justice,” Magadum said.
In May, Sudan’s military-led government approved a law that restored widespread powers and immunity to intelligence agents who were stripped after President Omar al-Bashir was expelled in April 2019. The General Information Services (GIS) Act (Amendment 2024) involves intelligence agents summoning and cooperating with individuals, monitoring Sudan, and monitoring Surveillance and Seedpect Surveillance.
The amendment acknowledged widespread immunity to protect investigators from criminal or civil prosecution without the approval of the head of GIS. In the death penalty case, the director was given authority to establish a special court.
“An act committed during the performance of his duties or in good faith, or from the performance of his duties or from the performance of his duties or from the act imposed upon him, or from the act issued under the authority authorized or granted to him under this Act, according to the Sudan War Monitor, Article 52 of the Act is not considered a crime.”
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.
The situation in Sudan worsened as the civil war that broke out in April 2023 intensified. WWL reports that 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, plundered 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 12.9 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 promoted final recognition.
Burhan attempted to deploy the RSF, a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militia, which helped former army al-Bashir under normal military control, to defeat the rebels, within two years Dagoro accepted the merger.
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 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 coup on October 25, 2021, Sudanian 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.
