19 Dead as Arab Militias Attack South Sudanese Villages – CSI Provides Aid

Clutching her baby against her breast, panic-stricken Akon Nguet gathered her other children and rushed out of their hut at dawn to hide in the bush. Within minutes, her home was ablaze. Arab Islamist militiamen on horseback and three-wheel motorbikes had launched an attack against her predominately Christian Black African village in South Sudan. 

On January 4, 2022, Arab raiders crossed the border from Sudan and set about destroying the villages of Yinh Pabol and Warguet. These were the first such attacks in the area in over 15 years, and they came out of the blue.

“Most of the attackers on horses were men and the majority on motorbike tricycles were women who came into the area one hour after the men had captured some women and children,” according to a local worker with Christian Solidarity International (CSI). He said the women were ululating to celebrate the success of the raid. The local church in Akon’s village was burned down.

The local governor said 19 people were confirmed dead in the twin attacks.

8-year-old child abducted

Some of Akon’s neighbors were killed. Others were captured and whisked away into slavery in Sudan, just as tens of thousands of South Sudanese people were enslaved during the civil war (1983-2005). Akon and her children survived. But they are now destitute. Their hut was set alight, and virtually all their meager belongings were destroyed. 

Adhuol Wol Ahoi’s eight-year-old child was one of those captured.

“While I was at a distance to my maternal uncle’s house where I live with my child, I saw men on horses shooting my uncle three times. They grabbed my childAguot Bol, and put her on a horse, then rode away with her,” said the desperate mother.

She, Akon, and hundreds of others from their area are now struggling to survive, eating leaves, begging from other impoverished people, huddling around an open fire at night to stay warm.

CSI mobilizes aid

But help is on the way. A team from Christian Solidarity International (CSI) is now on the spot, mobilizing food rations and survival kits containing a cooking pot, a blanket, a water jug, a mosquito net, and plastic sheeting for shelter. 

This aid is made possible by your donations to support the persecuted parts of the body of Christ, wherever they may be.

With your support, since 1995, CSI has liberated tens of thousands of South Sudanese people from slavery in the north, bringing them home through underground slave retrieval networks. When the civil war between North and South Sudan ended in 2005, the slave raids ended too – at least for a time. 

The Islamist slave raid on Akon’s area of South Sudan was the first for over 15 years. It comes amid a tidal wave of jihadism across much of sub-Saharan Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Christians and other non-Muslims are not the only victims. But they are especially targeted as infidels. 

The threat posed by jihadism in sub-Saharan Africa is rarely spoken about by our political, economic, and even religious leaders. It is as if the African parts of the Body of Christ have little value. 

The survival of people like Akon and her children, indeed, the survival of jihad-threatened Christian communities throughout Africa depends on how we respond. Working together in Christian solidarity, we can save lives and bring hope to persecuted Christians and others who have no other hope in this world.

Thank you for rising to this challenge.

You Can Help Christians Under Attack by Jihadists in South Sudan Today!

$100 can feed a displaced family for one month!

A female goat for a displaced family costs $52.

A survival kit – which gives a displaced family a cooking pot, a blanket, a water jug, a mosquito net, and plastic sheeting for shelter – costs $55.

Your gifts of any size will also help provide medical treatment for people who have lost their homes.

  • Our liberation mission depends on supporters like you. You can help rescue a person from slavery today!