Several groups of Christians have been detained by government troops as they fled the civil war in Khartoum heading to the Nuba Mountains. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) accused them of collaborating with the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in the Nuba Mountains, where there are close to 800,000 internally displaced, is increasingly precarious.
Displaced families face a catastrophic lack of food. csi
SAF military intelligence arrested dozens of members of the Al Iziba Christian Church in Khartoum North as they attempted to flee fighting, Sudanese sources report. At the same time, Christians living in a village under RSF control have come under pressure to convert to Islam, Morning Star News reports.
In an urgent alert, the nonprofit group Justice Africa Sudan said the Christians, all from the Nuba Mountains, had been trying to escape intense fighting. The men, women and children were arrested in groups between 2 and 7 October in Shendi, in River Nile State, on suspicion of being RSF collaborators.
Most of those detained were released after questioning, but several men – one of them the church pastor – are reportedly still being held.
Caught up in conflict
The civil war that broke out in April 2023 pits the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. In the capital, Khartoum, the SAF is trying to drive out RSF forces, and on 13 October 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.
For Osama Saeed Musa Koudi, the president of the Sudanese Christian Youth Union, the arrests “represent a further instance of targeting of ethnic and religious minorities in the ongoing civil war”, The Sudan Times reported.
Religious persecution
CSI’s local partner, Benjamin Barnaba, 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 of Compassion and Sustainable Development Africa told CSI.
In Sudan, the largest Christian communities are in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan state and Blue Nile state, which neighbour 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 re-conquer 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. Currently there are more than 788,000 displaced persons in the Nuba Mountains. 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.
Close to 800,000 displaced people have moved into the Nuba Mountains region where they face a possible famine. csi
Worsening humanitarian crisis
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. So routes of supply are cut off completely and people are relying on South Sudan which is facing a total collapse of its economy.”
Housing is another problem facing the IDPs in the current rainy season as it is hard to find long grass or other local building materials for putting up shelters, according to Barnaba.
The humanitarian worker says education has been on hold during the rainy season to allow the children to help take care of livestock while their parents try to cultivate the crops needed for the survival of their families. “Schools in the Nuba Mountains are set to open again in November 2024, but as usual there are no educational and scholastic materials for the poor children,” added Barnaba.
CSI is providing live-saving humanitarian aid in the Nuba Mountains, including food assistance to the IDPs and returnees. It is also providing scholastic and educational materials for schools, water pumps for safe and clean water, and delivery kits for midwives.
Thousands of people in the Nuba Mountains live in huts they have build themselves. csi
