Several groups of Christians in Sudan have been detained by government troops as they fled the civil war in Khartoum heading to the Nuba Mountains where there are close to 800,000 people displaced. Christian Solidarity International (CSI) is providing life-saving humanitarian aid in the Nuba Mountains, including food assistance, educational materials for schools, water pumps for safe and clean water, and delivery kits for midwives.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) arrested dozens of members of the Al Iziba Christian Church as they attempted to flee the fighting, Sudanese sources report. At the same time, Christians living in a village under Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control have come under pressure to convert to Islam, Morning Star News reports.
The civil war that broke out in April 2023 pits the SAF against the paramilitary RSF militia. In the capital, Khartoum, the SAF is trying to drive out RSF forces, and on October 13 carried out an airstrike on a market in which 23 people died.
Since the start of the war, both sides have been accused of singling out Christians for attack and destroying churches in areas that they control.
CSI’s local partner, Benjamin Barnaba with Compassion and Sustainable Development Africa, confirms that there have been countless cases of persecution by the SAF and RSF of Christians forced to flee Khartoum and other major cities.
“Both the RSF and the SAF persecute people of black descent and Christians, who are characterized as outcasts,” Barnaba told CSI.
In Sudan, the largest Christian communities are in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan state and Blue Nile state, which neighbor South Sudan. The Nuba Christian population endured decades of oppression under the former Islamist dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. During the country’s second civil war (1983-2005) government forces subjected them to attacks that many scholars have described as genocidal. This war led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011, but the Nuba Mountains remained part of Sudan. Conflict broke out again in 2011, when the government in Khartoum tried to reconquer the region by force.
The Nuba Mountains region is now entirely under the control of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N).
Since the start of the Sudan civil war in 2023, hundreds of thousands of Nuban Christians have sought to return to their relatively peaceful homeland in South Kordofan. The mass influx of internally displaced people has aggravated an existing shortage of food and resources caused by low rainfall last year and a plague of locusts.
It is estimated that in the Nuba Mountains around three million people are currently facing acute hunger. Owing to the lack of food and medicines, disease and illness are rampant.
“South Kordofan state is facing hunger and famine-like conditions due to lack of time to cultivate crops as fighting continues between the RSF and the SAF,” said Barnaba. “The fighting is causing serial displacement and preventing the movement of people and goods to various areas. Routes of supply are cut off completely and people are relying on South Sudan which is facing a total collapse of its economy.”
