Sudan demolishes church in Khartoum

A Sudanese government force destroyed a church in Khartoum North on Monday, a day after authorities had sent a letter saying they would demolish the church. Priest Kuwa Shimal told CNN journalists that a group of about 70 government forces arrived at El Izba neighbourhood in Khartoum North around 10 am on Monday. Some of the forces were dressed in plain clothes. The threat of violence has caused Sudan’s churches to empty. At a recent Sunday service, worshippers asked journalists not to identify them by name. “The church is now contaminated by terror. You don’t feel safe in prayer,” a Christian activist said.No new churches In April 2013, a Sudanese Minister announced that no licenses would be granted to allow for the building of new churches. It was less than two years after the predominantly Christian South Sudan seceded to form an independent country. Sudanese authorities demolished a church building in Omdurman without prior notice in February this year. The church was not a missionary church but an indigenous one, with congregants mainly from the Nuba Mountains. Sudanese Christians also believed it is part of a campaign by President Omar Al Bashir to rid the country of Christianity. Apostasy Complaints about the predominantly Muslim country’s lack of religious freedom recently came under the international spotlight, after Maryam Yahya Ibrahim, a mother of two children and married to an American husband from South Sudan, refused to renounce her Christian faith. She was born a Muslim but raised as a Christian. By law, children must follow their father’s religion. The court charged her with apostasy and sentenced her to death. After a large international outcry and the interference of an appeal court, she was acquitted on 23 June. Photo: The ruins of the destroyed church near Khartoum. (CNN) Related:Condemned Christian woman re-arrested at Sudan airport (24 June 2014) Sudanese Church of Christ building bulldozed (20 February 2014)