A Sudanese refugee in South Sudan is facing death threats for converting to Christianity, sources said.
The 31-year-old former Muslim fled the military conflict in Sudan two years ago, arriving on the Gorom Refugee Settlement 26 kilometers (16 miles) southwest of Juba. He put his faith in Christ on May 10 after watching the Jesus Film at a church throughout the camp.
His conversion brought spiritual peace but immediately triggered a wave of hostility from the camp’s Muslim extremists, he said.
“After I believed in Jesus, radical Muslims began to persecute me and other converts,” he told Morning Star News.
Camp residents informed his relations in Darfur, Sudan of his conversion. Adhering to strict Islamic views on apostasy, his family has since disowned him and sanctioned his killing, he said.
“My family wants me dead,” he said.
Fearing for his life, he has taken refuge contained in the church constructing. Muslim extremists are aware he’s there, and the church leader said he’s in constant danger but has nowhere else to go. The pastor requested anonymity.
Beyond the specter of violence, he faces the each day struggle of survival in a high-need refugee setting.
“Life is difficult for us; food is an issue,” he said. “Please pray for me in order that God can change my Muslim family to come back to faith.”
While South Sudan’s structure provides for religious freedom, including the suitable to propagate one’s faith and convert, communal and familial pressure stays high inside refugee populations originating from more restrictive regions.
In Sudan, the country he fled, apostasy was long punishable by death until the law was abolished in 2020. Cultural and extremist attitudes regarding conversion, nevertheless, often persist across borders, leaving converts like him vulnerable to “honor” killings or mob violence.
Church leaders within the Gorom camp are calling for increased protection for religious converts and are looking for ways to offer basic necessities for those displaced by faith-based persecution. The camp has suffered shortages of food, water and healthcare since its population has swollen to greater than five times its capability.
The U.N.-supported camp was established in 2010 for about 2,500 Ethiopian refugees fleeing conflict. It has since grown significantly in response to regional crises, by August 2023 housing greater than 10,000 people, including recent arrivals from Sudan.
Anti-Sudanese violence in Juba in January 2025 drove greater than 6,800 Sudanese refugees to Gorom, bringing its population to greater than 22,000 by April.
Sudan is 93 percent Muslim, with adherents of ethnic traditional religion 4.3 percent of the population, while Christians constitute 2.3 percent, in keeping with Joshua Project.
Sudan was ranked No. 4 among the many 50 countries where it’s most difficult to be a Christian in Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List (WWL). Sudan had dropped out of the highest 10 of the WWL list for the primary time in six years when it first ranked No. 13 in 2021.
The U.S. State Department in 2019 removed Sudan from the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) that engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of non secular freedom” and upgraded it to a watch list. Sudan had previously been designated as a CPC from 1999 to 2018.
In December 2020, the State Department removed Sudan from its Special Watch List.
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