The Shambat Bridge in Khartoum was destroyed in Sudan’s civil war on Nov. 11, 2023. (Petr Adam Dohnalek, Creative Commons)
JUBA, South Sudan (Morning Star News) – A court in Sudan has sentenced seven Christians to prison terms of five and seven years on false charges of theft, sources said.
The displaced Christians in Shendi, River Nile state, who had been tortured by Military Intelligence agents after they were arrested on Jan. 14, are now serving their prison terms, said attorney Shinbago Mugaddam.
The Christians, all members of the Sudanese Church of Christ, had fled war in Khartoum, 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest of Shendi. They were sentenced in a hurried trial the same day as their arrest after being tortured into confessing, said Mugaddam.
“These youths were tried under Article 174 of the Sudanese Criminal Code of 1994 relating to theft in a summary trial in the Shendi Court, River Nile state, where the conditions for a fair trial were not met,” Mugaddam told Morning Star News.
MI agents of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) had accused the Christians of theft and supporting the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with the Christians denying both allegations, he said. The Sudanese Christian Youth Union had asserted that the accusations were false and an excuse to arrest the Christians.
Sentenced to seven years in prison each were Muraad Morjaan Anglo, Akram Omer Al Mahadi, Mutaz Al Seed Ibrahim and Amjad Mustafa, and another unnamed Christian, Mugaddam said. Algab Mohamed Al Mahadi Atroon and Murkus Moses Allajabu were sentenced to five years in prison each, he said.
Christians in Sudan are now calling upon other Christians around the world to pray and stand with the Christians of Sudan, with one Christian posting on social media, “Let us rise our hands in the churches and pray for these young men who are jail so that God be with them.”
The Union of Sudanese Christian Youth had condemned the arrests and called for their immediate release. Describing the arrests as a violation of human and religions rights in Sudan, the body urged all rights groups, regional and international organizations to intervene and protect those who have jailed without evidence.
In October, 26 Christians were arrested by Military Intelligence in Shendi after fleeing areas under RSF control in Khartoum.
Sudan’s military-led government in May approved a law restoring broad powers and immunities to intelligence officers that had been stripped after the ousting of President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The General Intelligence Service (GIS) Law (2024 Amendment) empowers intelligence officers to summon and interrogate individuals, conduct surveillance and searches, detain suspects and seize assets, according to the Sudan War Monitor.
The amendment granted extensive immunity, shielding agents from criminal or civil prosecution without the approval of the head of GIS. In capital punishment cases, it gave the director authority to form a special court.
“Any act committed by any member of the agency in good faith during or because of the performance of his job duties, or the performance of any duty imposed on him, or from any act issued by him under any authority authorized or granted to him under this law, shall not be considered a crime,” the law’s Article 52 states, according to the Sudan War Monitor.
Sudan was ranked No. 5 among the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian in Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List (WWL), down from No. 8 the prior year.
Conditions in Sudan worsened as civil war that broke out in April 2023 intensified. Sudan registered increases in the number of Christians killed and sexually assaulted and Christian homes and businesses attacked, according to the WWL report.
“Christians of all backgrounds are trapped in the chaos, unable to flee. Churches are shelled, looted and occupied by the warring parties,” the report stated.
Since April 2023 militants of the paramilitary RSF have been battling the SAF, and each Islamist force has attacked displaced Christians on accusations of supporting the other’s combatants.
The conflict between the RSF and the SAF, which had shared military rule in Sudan following an October 2021 coup, has terrorized civilians in Khartoum and elsewhere, killing tens of thousands and displacing more than 12.36 million people within and beyond Sudan’ borders, according to the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR).
The SAF’s Gen. Abdelfattah al-Burhan and his then-vice president, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, were in power when civilian parties in March 2023 agreed on a framework to re-establish a democratic transition the next month, but disagreements over military structure torpedoed final approval.
Burhan sought to place the RSF – a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militias that had helped former strongman Omar al-Bashir put down rebels – under the regular army’s control within two years, while Dagolo would accept integration within nothing fewer than 10 years.
Both military leaders have Islamist backgrounds while trying to portray themselves to the international community as pro-democracy advocates of religious freedom.
Sudan had dropped out of the top 10 of the WWL list for the first time in six years when it first ranked No. 13 in 2021.
Following two years of advances in religious freedom in Sudan after the end of the Islamist dictatorship under Bashir in 2019, the specter of state-sponsored persecution returned with the military coup of Oct. 25, 2021. After Bashir was ousted from 30 years of power in April 2019, the transitional civilian-military government had managed to undo some sharia (Islamic law) provisions. It outlawed the labeling of any religious group “infidels” and thus effectively rescinded apostasy laws that made leaving Islam punishable by death.
With the Oct. 25, 2021 coup, Christians in Sudan feared the return of the most repressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law. Abdalla Hamdok, who had led a transitional government as prime minister starting in September 2019, was detained under house arrest for nearly a month before he was released and reinstated in a tenuous power-sharing agreement in November 2021.
Hamdock had been faced with rooting out longstanding corruption and an Islamist “deep state” from Bashir’s regime – the same deep state that is suspected of rooting out the transitional government in the Oct. 25, 2021 coup.
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 religious 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.
The Christian population of Sudan is estimated at 2 million, or 4.5 percent of the total population of more than 43 million.
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