Persecution in Sudan

John Brand

I recognised him as soon as I answered the knock on the guest-house door. He had been one of the evangelists the previous week’s conference. His front two top teeth were missing and the first tooth on either side of the gap was bright gold, but it wasn’t his dental work that had imprinted his face on my memory – it was the smile on his face as he sang and worshipped, and the beauty of the Lord that I had seen on his face. And he wasn’t the only one. As I stood and gazed over the sea of faces, mostly upturned to heaven, again and again I saw the radiance of the Lord reflected.

I was in Sudan at the invitation of the Africa Inland Church there (AIC-S) to minister at their first ever National Strategic Church Workers Conference in Khartoum. Representatives were there from each of the 40 or so AIC-S congregations in the government controlled area of the country, and while there were about 120 on the first day the numbers grew to 250 by the end of the week. Even by the standards of other similar conferences I have been involved in in Africa, this was a remarkable event.

The church in Sudan is undergoing possibly the most vicious anti-Christian persecution in the world today, and has been, on and off since 1956. Christian believers are being denied freedom of worship and are Islamised by force; Churches are burned, Christian leaders killed and Christians forced to move to Muslim controlled areas.

The Sudanese Supreme Court has upheld the right to extract confessions under torture and crucifixion as a form of execution

Since 1983 alone, more than two million people have been killed and another 5 million displaced by the war and the famine in the south that has resulted from the Government’s scorched earth policy. The Government of Sudan is now receiving about $1 million a day in revenue from their oil fields and this has led to a doubling in military expenditure. Attacks from helicopter gunships on churches, schools and clinics are commonplace. Aerial bombing consists of massive shrapnel filled bombs being manually rolled out of the back of Antanov planes flying at high altitude. According to Amnesty International, "The civilian population living in oil fields and surrounding areas has been deliberately targeted for massive human rights abuses – forced displacement, aerial bombardments, strafing villages from helicopter gunships, unlawful killings, torture including rape and abduction……Male villagers were killed in mass executions; women and children were nailed to trees with iron spikes…..soldiers slit the throats of children and male civilians who had been interrogated by hammering nails into their foreheads."

And the result – a church that is growing fast and a people who are radiant in their faith and proving, again and again, the faithfulness of God to his people. It is probable that more Muslims are coming to faith in Christ in Sudan than anywhere else. Twenty years ago, Christians made up 5% of the total population - today the figure is around 20%. Twenty years ago, the Africa Inland Church had about a dozen churches, whereas today it numbers around 150.

Most of the Christians I ministered to in Khartoum were displaced southerners, refugees within their own country, now existing in squalid and basic mud settlements in the desert on the edge of the city. In one of these settlements, 60,000 men, women and children survive in mud brick dwellings with no power, water, sewage or amenities. Here a little AIC-S clinic valiantly provides basic health care and evangelism to the community. In another, I had the privilege of opening a new church school providing a Christian education to over 170 children in four small classrooms. If the children don’t attend this school they would have to go to the Koranic school or be deprived of access to further education.

In the conference, no preacher ever had a more attentive or appreciative congregation. The truths of God’s Word are joyously and spontaneously affirmed; a few weep as the Spirit presses home some personal application. In this gathering are women whose husbands have not been seen since being taken away by the security forces years ago, while others are known to authorities and wonder what awaits them. The Assistant Bishop and AIM have been named in the press as funding and training the SPLA in the south. Are they cowed? Do they make concessions? No. These saints may be poor and downtrodden in earthly terms, but to be in their company was to experience the nearness of God to a degree previously almost unknown to me.

More information about the church and work in Sudan can be had from Africa Inland Mission, Halifax Place, NOTTINGHAM NG1 1QN Visit our website at www.aimeurope.net