Christians Under Attack

SOUTH KORDAFAN, SUDAN -- Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that military intelligence agents killed one Christian, and Islamic militants sympathetic to the government slaughtered another last week after attacking churches in Sudan's embattled South Kordofan state.

 

CDN said that Christian sources have said that a Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) Intelligence unit detained Nimeri Philip Kalo, a student at St. Paul Major Seminary, on June 8 near the gate of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in Kadugli's al Shaeer area and shot him in front of bystanders. Kalo and other Christians were fleeing the town after Muslim militias loyal to the SAF attacked and looted at least three church buildings in Kadugli, they said.

 

"Armed conflict in Kadugli broke out between southern and northern militaries on June 6 after northern forces seized Abyei last month," the CDN story continued. "On June 8, Islamic militants loyal to the SAF slaughtered a young Christian man by sword in Kadugli Market, the sources said.

 

"Adeeb Gismalla Aksam, 33, was a bus driver whose father is an elder with the Evangelical Church in Kadugli. The Islamic militias were heard shouting 'Allahu-akbar' (God is greater) as they began shooting at a Roman Catholic Church building the same day. No one was hit by the bullets shot at the building from the outside, but SAF agents arrested the Rev. Abraham James Lual in front of his congregation. Authorities took him to an unknown location and tortured him for two days, a priest said."

 

The story added that the SAF and Islamic militias on June 8 also set fire to buildings of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and the Sudanese Church of Christ in Kadugli, sources said.

 

"The churches and pastors were directly targeted," said the Rt. Rev. Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail.

 

There are unconfirmed estimates of more than 53,000 people displaced due to the fighting in Southern Kordofan between the northern army known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) of Southern Sudan, according to the UN humanitarian wing.

 

Media reports say that fighting, including bombardments and artillery shelling, has been reported in 11 of 19 localities in Southern Kordofan state, and fighting has been reported in Unity state in Southern Sudan, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said.

 

Some of the internally displaced persons (IDPs), as well as local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN staff, have taken refuge outside the compound of the UN peacekeeping mission (UNMIS) on the outskirts of the Southern Kordofan capital of Kadugli.