South Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments wrote a letter ordering a sect of Church leaders in Omdurman to comply with an order to turn over leadership of their congregation to a government appointed-committee.
Seven Pastors were jailed for six hours on Wednesday (Aug. 23) and charged with refusing to comply with this policy, sources report.
The Rev. Ayoub Mattan, Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) moderator, and Kwa Shamaal (also transliterated Kuwa Shamaal), head of missions at the SCOC, were among the church leaders arrested, Christian persecution watchdog, Morning Star News has said on Monday.
“Police asked if we still maintain our stance on our refusal to acknowledge the committee appointed by the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments, and we said yes, because it is not the work of the [government] ministry to appoint committees for the church,” Pastor Shamaal told Morning Star News.
Police said, according to the source, that in arresting them they were implementing orders from the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments to impose its committee as new SCOC leadership.
The pastors say the committee is contrary to SCOC’s constitution, which calls for general elections every three years to appoint new leadership and that this committee reportedly wants to sell off the church property in Sudan’s bid to rid the country of Christianity.
Morning Star News says in its campaign to rid the country of Christianity, Sudan has designated 25 church buildings for destruction, and on Aug. 2 it demolished a Baptist church in Omdurman. On May 7 Khartoum state authorities in Sudan demolished a church building in the Khartoum suburb of Soba al Aradi, which began as a refugee camp for south Sudanese.
Harassment, arrests and persecution of Christians have intensified since the secession of South Sudan in July 2011. The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Endowments announced in April 2013 that no new licenses would be granted for building new churches in Sudan, citing a decrease in the South Sudanese population.
Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them in their effort to find other Christians, Morning Star News reports.
The United Nations refugee agency revealed this month that a daily exodus of villagers fleeing armed conflict, hunger and sexual violence in South Sudan has pushed the number of refugees sheltering in Uganda to over one million. UN called for international action to deal with what it called one of Africa’s biggest humanitarian crises.
cnakalungi@ugchristiannews.com
