With the world’s concentrate on ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East, the victims of a conflict in Africa fear that they’re liable to being forgotten and are calling on the West to recollect their plight.
Sudan, certainly one of the biggest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, descended into civil war just over a yr ago, with fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces putting thousands and thousands liable to displacement and death.
“The situation is deteriorating every single day and there isn’t a response from the world. There is a robust feeling of abandonment,” Illia Djadi, Open Doors’ Senior Analyst for Freedom of Religion or Belief in Sub-Saharan Africa, said.
“Sudan is home to the world’s largest mass displacement with nearly 9 million people on the run, and is facing the world’s largest hunger crisis, however it isn’t getting the eye and the response it should in comparison with other crises.”
Illia visited the war-torn region earlier this month, and said that there’s a real fear amongst Sudan’s Christian community that the world’s eyes are turned elsewhere. Bishop Anthony Poggo, the Secretary General of the Anglican, echoed these fears, using an announcement to the Anglican Communion News Service to call on the international community “not to desert the people of Sudan, despite the concentrate on conflicts elsewhere”.
“While there are a lot of positive grassroots efforts to support, including peacebuilding initiatives by religious and traditional leaders and financial provision flowing from the Sudanese diaspora, we appeal urgently for much greater international humanitarian support to mitigate the enormity of the suffering of the people,” he said.
Sudan’s two million Christians have particular reason to fear a continuation of the conflict. The majority Muslim country was already ranked number eight on the Open Doors World Watch List, which ranks the nations across the globe where Christians face the worst persecution and discrimination. Observers fear that the continuing violence could also be used as a pretext for greater persecution of believers, making an already fraught existence harder for Christians. Already, greater than 150 churches have been damaged or destroyed over the course of the war, whether in consequence of collateral damage or through being deliberately targeted.
“There isn’t any security, no protection,” said Illia. “Not from the warring parties or from opportunists who will use this case to further their very own agendas. Christians and their churches have been attacked with impunity.”
Many displaced individuals have sought refuge in other areas in Sudan, but fleeing the areas most affected by the conflict areas brings its own risks, especially for Christians. Many face discrimination resulting from their faith once they do find shelter, and are sometimes neglected or neglected during aid distribution.
Rachel Morley, an Open Doors researcher, says that for these internally displaced people (IDPs) the danger stays high.
“While refugees move away from the immediate danger and find refuge in places where they receive a level of (international) protection, IDPs wouldn’t have that. They are less protected and still at a better risk because they continue to be in an identical environment.”
Before the newest conflict, Sudan’s Christians had felt a level of hope that things were improving for the country’s believers after the civil-military government, put in place after the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, abolished a number of the laws that regulated religious belief and practice. But, now, church leaders fear the previous ruling Islamists might benefit from the continuing insecurity to return to power, allowing them to re-impose hardline Islamic ‘Sharia’ laws corresponding to the blasphemy law.
“The international community must act and see an end to this war. There is an actual danger of Sudan becoming one other Libya where the autumn of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi in 2011 left an influence vacuum,” Illia said.
“This has had great consequences for the region, including trafficking of arms and medicines, and has fueled conflict in other parts of the continent; particularly within the Sahel where it has caused a dramatic humanitarian disaster.”
